compared to what? in this world, there are lots of executives who get paid literally millions of dollars to do nothing at best, or actively destroy value at worst.

These people are a tiny minority at the tail of the income distribution. Using them as a metric is the statistical definition of the warped perspective.

Having a six-figure household income at all puts you in the top 15% in the US. Having a $400k salary puts you very close to the top 1%. I would say anyone making enough to put them, by themselves, in the top 15% is arguably making a "big salary". The Valley has really warped the perception within this industry in particular and the US in general as to what "normal" money is.

we're talking executive salaries here, not individual contributors or 'normal' i.e. median income for people at the lowest pay scales of an organization.

400k is a good executive salary. i guess you could call it 'big' but it doesn't strike me as something 'too high' or as an indicator of something nefarious going on. it's in line with very senior executive pay at the c-level or a very senior VP/MD. someone like that probably oversees up to 8 or 9 figures of business.

Right, but we're not talking about whether a median employee's salary is big in a median market. We're talking about executive comp in the SFBA. I'd estimate the CEO of PLoS is making ~2.5x what the average employee makes, which is a completely reasonable multiple for executives that are reliably hitting their goals and doing good work. You may think comp in the SFBA is warped, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss context out of hand.

No, we're talking about total executive comp at a non-profit. If compensation in the SFBA is warped relative to the rest of the US it is fair to ask why a non-profit is based there and whether the salaries they have to pay to stay are justified.

Nope, $400K is typical executive compensation in major US cities.

I just pulled a few 990s for professional engineering societies. Except for their CEO/ED and one or two key regional managers, they make far less than $400k/year. That said, I looked at PLOS's 990 and saw numbers that were a) much smaller than I expected based on the $400k comment and b) in line with but slightly higher than what I saw from, say, the Society or Petroleum Engineers or Society of Automotive Engineers.

Make sure you restrict to major cities. That affects comp. Also I suspect those forms show base pay not total comp which is typically far higher.

Not sure about the legal reporting requirements, but since my wife works at one of them I can tell you first-hand that they don't get much on top of their base salary. Non-profits are 80%+ salary compensation, even at the highest levels.

Also, engineering societies generally are based in major cities.