The amount that Big Tech can afford to pay is correlated to their revenue.

The amount that Big Tech is willing to pay is correlated to the market supply of employees.

But I'm unconvinced that a very profitable company will decide to pay less than it can afford, in order to acquire the best engineering talent it can, when their revenue is directly linked to their engineering products.

The only thing that would make FAANG pay nosedive is if they made an organizational decision that they didn't want to prioritize software development.

So basically, if one of them decided to hire an Eddie Lampert type.

> I'm unconvinced that a very profitable company will decide to pay less than it can afford

They are not o paying maximum of what they cam afford, they are making huge profits.

If they are not paying maximum that they can afford what are they paying? Provavly the minimum they think they can get away with.

Its all mind games.

I agree that they could indeed be paying their engineers far more and still make a profit, but that’s just supply versus demand. They found the pay bands that provide the sweet spot:

Relative maximums for profit and talent willing to accept those salaries.