[vineyardmike]

This isn’t particularly controversial tbh.

Yes Google’s high salaries are part of a system that has been reworking entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. This has been documented and discussed at length. Did you look for data?

Big tech pays in valuable stock, and salaries can reach upwards of 500k for relative rank and file positions (not rare one offs). Over a decade, that’s $5M. At the same time, VC firms have been holding companies private longer raising more rounds, which often dilutes the employee shares and reduces the “reward” for employees waiting for an IPO. If that new diluted IPO rewards an employee under $5M for a decade of employment, they were better off at Google/Meta/etc. Startups were always a lottery ticket, but if a “winning” ticket is less profitable than not playing, why join at all?

This plays directly into the thesis that the powerful are extracting additional resources at the expense of the cultural expectations and understandings. VC firms diluting employees is profitable for VCs, but it jeopardizes the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem if smart people prefer better compensation. Same with the recent AI aqui-hire controversies like Windsurf. Why join a startup if the CEO will take a billion dollar payout and leave the employees with worthless stock.