The reality was it wasn't even a coin flip. They based things on pie in the sky estimates - treating them as factual evidence. If you're going to believe a recruiter on futures of stock options (not even RSUs) you're mad. Beyond that Facebook, at the time of consideration, was still a massive behemoth financially compared to Uber who had yet to publicly show an earnings report. I wrote this up right before Uber went public, but it was clear this stock was going to sink vs swim. They have nothing but debt, very little R&D that has long term viability any of the FAANGs couldn't just buy up as collateral, and have been throwing darts at how to monetize into the black since becoming commonplace. Had Uber had a few shreds of conservative approach to what they're doing I'd be far more behind them. But I was out at one of their research facilities on the east coast a couple of years ago and I couldn't believe the sheer amount of unknown and money (they didn't have) being dumped into autonomous at the time. Fast forward years and they still have no operational product. They're not Apple or Google with wads of cash to burn. The goal with going IPO was to accelerate the end product that makes them profitable, which they have yet to deliver.
Personally I don't think there was any choice that would have made sense other than Facebook to net you the most guaranteed cash. Cambridge was never going to sink FB, at least not in any timeframe that would have impacted your vesting schedule. You got in at the perfect time. Timing is everything, and the takeaway is make decisions on the known, not a recruiter floating numbers they don't remotely understand and are incented to make sound amazing.
How so? It seems to be a pretty standard compensation package for a software developer in California, and his post is clearly targeted at that audience.
To my mind, in order to be a humblebrag, he'd have had to be posting about a much higher income than his target audience. E.g. posting this same thing to a general audience, not other Silicon Valley devs. Or posting to the same audience, but about a $500k+ income.
I think there's some real value in people openly actually laying out what their compensation package is, how it worked out and the risks involved is actually really valuable. Obviously we shouldn't be making too many decision from anecdotes, but more awareness of peoples' compensation in the industry is a good thing.
Personally I don't think there was any choice that would have made sense other than Facebook to net you the most guaranteed cash. Cambridge was never going to sink FB, at least not in any timeframe that would have impacted your vesting schedule. You got in at the perfect time. Timing is everything, and the takeaway is make decisions on the known, not a recruiter floating numbers they don't remotely understand and are incented to make sound amazing.