[krupan]

FWIW, Google and HP back in their days did still pay among the highest if not the highest salaries. But you are right the ideals mattered a lot to the employees and it's really really hard for a company to maintain those high ideals for too long, but I think HP did it for around 40 or 50 years. Google for maybe 15? Different time periods though.

[nostrademons]

The competition for Google back in the days wasn't a random enterprise software shop, it was usually the financial industry or starting your own company, both of which could have payoffs in the tens of millions. When I got my first offer letter (2009), they explicitly said "Googlers do not generally work for Google for the prospect of outsize financial gains." They paid very well compared to your average software company, but there was no way they could match say Jane Street or D.E. Shaw.