[jfengel]

That's just it. There are millions of developers who could do FAANG jobs. Or at least, hundreds of thousands.

The companies go through hoops -- or rather, make you jump through hoops -- to get what they imagine to be the "cream of the crop". But the vast majority of them will tell you that they're not really that much more productive than the next developer who didn't make the cut. They're not sucking up all the 10x developers while the rest of us are stuck with 1x developers. Even if their tests really did get them the 10x developers, they could get a 9.9x developer for half the price.

Worldwide, it's certainly millions. Even just in the US, it's tens of thousands at a minimum, if not hundreds of thousands.

FAANG developers get paid mid six figures because FAANG companies make 11 figures. Lifeguards are not less skilled, more numerous, or less important. They just don't have access to the enormous pot of money. Same with schoolteachers, programmers in other industries, and lots of other people.

Being a programmer is great, and a lot of us are really good at our jobs. No reason to break our arms patting ourselves on the back. We're incredibly fortunate to be skilled at something that's making somebody a ton of money, and they're slightly unbinding the mouths of us kine who tread the grain. But we should remember that this is more about luck than our inherent greatness -- and that goes 10X for FAANG employees.