Quick googling, there are 500k engineers working in FAANG: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-total-number-of-software-e...
I would say those are much better odds than becoming a top league sports player.
But it's mainly the ones in the US that get the crazy salaries? Certainly not the ones in Asia, S America and much less so in Europe.
Also adding some stats on this that someone else posted a few days ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/106ne2r/...
It's still someone with a great resume - Purdue, 3.8 GPA. They did get a good job and compensation, but it's not FAANG, and it's what many people should expect today even if they're top 1% in the country.
Re:Ask HN: Why Become a Doctor Nowadays?
by WhiteBlueSkies on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @08:04AM
(#34324201)
Lol. FAANGs have hundreds of thousands of employees. They aren't Einsteins.
There's also a bit of tunnel vision in that these amazing jobs didn't exist 10 years ago; the people who have graduated within that time span just feel like they've been around forever. But when I graduated, PHP programming paid less than working management at KFC. I even applied to a job at KFC because working in tech was this ridiculous fantasy, and I'd eventually run out of inheritance money.
I still don't have a FAANG job. And the odds of getting a FAANG job for me is much lower than the odds of making a million dollar company.
I think that's the case for many career decisions. Some guy out there has better odds at becoming a pro footballer than getting a FAANG job. Many people who become doctors are from doctor families. To them, amputating a foot sounds more doable than trying to make sure a server runs at 99.99% uptime.