[TechBro8615]

Because they never really existed in the first place, except for at a few major corporations that basically monopolized the labor market and forced a choice between morality or high pay.

Meanwhile, the workers who took those jobs deluded themselves into thinking they deserved those salaries based purely on merit, and that their salary would keep increasing throughout their career.

[Ancalagon]

This statement is patently false. Go look at the top paying companies on Levels.fyi for the last 2-3 years. A good portion are not major corporations but rather VC-backed startups. For a while there, Roblox and Robinhood were the ones offering insane compensations and much of FAANG (expecially AA, excluding N) were falling behind.

This also says nothing of the (what I would consider) tier 2/3 companies still offering over $300k TC for senior (5+ yr experience) technical talent. There are _even more_ more well-funded, semi-unicorn startups offering base salary $200k+ plus equity in their startups. In my last job search alone I found 3 of these companies which you've probably never heard of.

The competition for _technical_ talent is fierce.

[anon50118810]

My own experience is that employers are picky. See my recent discussion at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33596779. Lots of divergent experiences there but the general consensus seemed to be that the market is great for talent with a strong network or relevant domain knowledge. Unfortunately for the people recently laid off from FAANG, they're competing with people with the same network and domain knowledge. There's also the question of whether VC investment will remain strong when the big companies are laying people off.

[bergenty]

The biggest corporations in America that hired millions of people? You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face.