[albacur]

I think Stripe is one of the few bad examples they could have picked to compare against FAANG. Among late-stage startups, it seems highly regarded and its employees' options are likely to hold real value in the not-so-distant future.

But generally I think the OP is correct: working for FAANG has made many, many people far more money over the past decade than they would have otherwise made on average in a startup.

I suspect that eventually the tide will turn, as it always does. The companies will get middle-manager bloat, MBAs and accountants start pinching pennies, systems get dragged down in technical debt, and more nimble competitors eventually outcompete. But we're not there yet.

[ffggvv]

you’re comparing fang to average startup. instead you should compare fang to top tier startup. as that’s the choice people who get fang offers make... in almost all examples i can think of, the top tier startup pays more.

furthermore before they were fang companies, google was the top tier startup and IBM was the equivalent to FANG.

[kortilla]

> in almost all examples i can think of, the top tier startup pays more.

WeWork and Airbnb want a word.

[whimsicalism]

> a word.

A word about what? Their salaries are certainly competitive with, if not higher paying than, Google and Stripe's are objectively higher.

[kortilla]

Not according to public info. When I left Google an L5 was commonly clearing 500k in liquid comp. Airbnb and WeWork weren’t even close and that was before the implosions.

[ffggvv]

airbnb pays a lot more than google lol. and they are actually doing great now despite layoffs at the realllt beginning of covid

[kortilla]

Nah https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Airbnb,Google&track=Software...