> But part of it is that FAANG compensation is just far more than anybody else could ever afford.
I don't think this is true. I've had friends getting comparable comp offers at HBO and NatGeo, for example. And of course it's been known for some time that successful startups like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. were doing comparable offers.
Once a company decides to really compete digitally, and that they can leverage economies of scale properly there, it suddenly makes sense to compete for the same class of engineer that can work at Google, Meta, etc.
I don't think this is true. I've had friends getting comparable comp offers at HBO and NatGeo, for example. And of course it's been known for some time that successful startups like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. were doing comparable offers.
Once a company decides to really compete digitally, and that they can leverage economies of scale properly there, it suddenly makes sense to compete for the same class of engineer that can work at Google, Meta, etc.