Haha, seriously, although to be fair to the startups, it occasionally works. I was getting really burned out at my last job (wasn't a FAANG, but had FAANG-level pay), and ended up joining a startup at ~half my current pay, but way less stress. I am so much happier now.

Also, thanks mostly to equity appreciation, I'm almost up to what my previous jobs starting pay was :-)

Also there's no point going through 3 weeks of interviews to get lowballed in the end. If they don't mention salary range by the first interview, I squeeze it out of them or turn the job down.

> Every time the budget ends up being disappointing and about half my current income.

Protip: on the very first call, say “My current salary is XY. A competing offer is in your budget?”

Protip2: XY doesn’t have to be your actual salary, use a number that is your desired floor to start the negotiation from.

I get the impression that in the long term and on average, people benefit more from being honest.

So how about just saying, "I'm currently only considering positions with salary XY. Is that in your budget?"

Often if I go job hunting, there's a 25%-250% increase in salary. The 250% is often some tiny startup in a developed nation, which comes with its own costs; no healthcare, dodgy contract, remote, etc. But the idea is that it's easy to just take -- or turn down, a range much higher than you make now.