Not at all. It's a meeting of four people, each of them making ~$75k, which is about half of what a skilled and experienced programmer (HN audience?) commands these days.

You have to remember the employer's overhead, as well - things like office space, computers, electricity, health insurance contributions, etc etc etc.

When you start talking about the HN crowd, it's a lunch meeting of two people in the lobby of a pretty normal office.

The 200 it suggests is per person. With 30% overhead, that would be $320k/year for a full time job.

Not really if you're considering billable rates. A senior designer or a junior engineer could easily bill for $200. And remember, its an average. Get a principal or an architect in the room and you've got some people who might bill at, I don't know, $700 dollars an hour or more.

That might not be the company's cost, but it will show you how much of a client's budget you're burning through in a meeting.