I've recently negotiated a 4-day work week with my employer. It's been a huge quality of life improvement. Whether I make $80k/yr or $150k/yr, it doesn't matter as much to me as quality of life. Maybe I'm an outlier, but money isn't everything.

If smaller companies can't compete on the huge salaries and options that larger companies provide, they can certainly compete on flexible work schedules. A developer working 4 days a week is pretty much just as useful to me as the engineering manager as a developer who is working 5 days a week. Budget and schedule.