[John23832]

Startup's have famously traded pay for the "carrot" of outsized returns on equity. The pay always sucks.

Most people do not want to work for subpar pay in the one of the most expensive areas in the US. Especially when you're getting diluted off of the cap table as happens now. You're always ending up behind.

That's before considering people with actual life responsibilities.

[Newlaptop]

This comment seems like 15 years outdated to me. I'm curious what you think "normal" pay and "startup" pay are. Or maybe how early you're drawing the line for defining "startup".

Being in the first handful of non-founder startup employees at some seed stage company is probably not the most lucrative thing, but once companies are post Series A, as far as I can tell they tend to be comp competitive with bigger companies.

Obviously not many companies can compete with Meta or Jane Street for salaries, but that's true whether you're talking about a startup or the majority of the S&P 500 companies.

[yunwal]

This is really SDE pay coming back down to earth. You're still making way more than even most white collar jobs at a startup.