If it's just salary, not including equity, that's by no means "very low". Where are you finding that new grads are typically getting more?
I had offers for $130k base, $130k base + equity and $130k base + bonus and those were considered to be below average by most of my peers.
You are living in a Valley bubble if you think $140k is "pretty low" for a new grad in general, and that's as total comp (not just salary).
Would the average joe/jane, given the offer of a "low" 140K salary at a FAANG, turn it down on ethical grounds?
I doubt it. The median US household income appears to be about 60K (1), so at 140K you'd be single-handedly over double the median houshold income before taking into consideration any partner's income. Thats a big deal.
This almost flippant attitude to employment and high salaries in silicon valley is somewhat worrying. I feel like people are growing increasingly disconnected from reality of life that the average person on the street has to deal with.
1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...
I mean, I'm pretty average but I did that for a tiny bit more money considering equity at a startup. I think it's not an unreasonable assumption to make if your competing offers are similar, which a lot of people in this position do. I don't think there are many people who only get Facebook offers.
The calculus is different for interns though, on account of the massive signing bonus.
I'm reminded of a line in Roger Ebert's review of American Splendor: "We don't fight over trivial things, because nothing worth fighting over is trivial. As Harvey might say, Hey, it's important to me!"
1) I always read these articles and sigh. Seems like they only focus on 2 elite tech companies at the expense of all the others while only interviewing students at the #1 CS school in the country. I feel like a 2nd class citizen in the industry because of it. When will the normal people be heard?
2) I'm kind of surprised they listed a $140k starting pay. That's pretty low for new grads in the industry and very low for Facebook.
3) I think it requires an immense amount of privilege to say no to a company for relatively trivial reasons (you're probably not going to be working on product code if you don't want to) that pays as much as Facebook does, especially given the $75k signing bonus on the table for interns. I think any discussion about this on the student level has to start with this. Any comparison to the defense industry is silly because defense pays significantly less than big tech.