In a world where you can get 250

No one is paying $250k salary out of college. Every one of those jobs has similar salary to amazon with the rest in stock. Maybe high frequency traders will give you that cash, but no one else.

It's not unheard of, but usually you need a PhD is a hot field with several conference papers. But it does not seem the norm yet.

However, anecdotes make up hopes.

That's just a bachelors with 6 YOE (masters + phd). I have a bachelors with 6 years of actual experience and my target comp is 250k and actual is like 350k but in the meantime I've made a million dollars pre-tax in those 6 years. Totally different.

are you sure about that?

I think their new grad salary is around 120k in HCOL areas like SF.

That sounds low to me

When you make an argument for companies paying that much, you are essentially saying "FAANG companies with lots of cash reserves should overpay new hires in the goal to attract as many of them as possible in hopes that a few of them make something profitable and offset the cost"

While a viable business strategy, from a personal value perspective, if you are an average CS college grad, you are by far not going contribute even close to $150k/year worth of value - you are going to do some menial basic code modifications.

So by all means, while you can go and take advantage of the inflated salaries to maximize your own profit as much as you can, but you cannot claim that $150k starting salary is too low.

Considering the origins of these tech giants, I read your first paragraph and couldn't help but think, "meta-VC"

salary not total comp