[verall]

I get your using glassdoor and citing sources, but it's even worse, because someone competent enough to go straight into an associate prof position after PhD would guaranteed be making more than $200k at 6 years tenure at Apple, probably closing in on $300k.

[ModernMech]

But then you have to work at Apple. One the one hand, that's the dream of many people. On the other hand, I had some experience with people who went for that $300k, and Apple chewed them up and spit them out. They were working on a "secret project" which we all know was the driverless car. Such a shit show according to those people, so I'm glad I turned down the job. I hear the project is in zombie mode these days but who knows.

If you can put up with living inside of a police state like Apple, then maybe that's for you, but academia is such a completely different environment from that (very open and all about collaboration), it's hard to put a $$ amount on what it would take for me to put up with that abuse.