Yep. I don't know why anyone would even get out of bed for these numbers. Between base, bonus, and stock a senior engineer at a large, profitable company (Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc) in the Bay Area will be grossing over $400k. The startups are offering similar base salaries, no bonuses, and 1/1000th or less share of a company that in all likelihood is worthless or, at best, illiquid. That's really backwards. If a startup wanted me to trade my shares that are as good as cash for shares that are essentially lottery tickets, they need to bring a _higher_ base salary, not a lower one.

I guess startups only recruit the irrational?

>I guess startups only recruit the irrational?

There are plenty of rational and not necessarily fiscal reasons why someone would prefer to work at a startup than at BigCo.

There are, but compensation is probably not one of them.