Walmart has the same market cap as Amazon did in 2018. And Walmart is a purely retail company, while AWS was already an expected part of Amazon revenue in 2018 at that valuation. The analysis that big tech can afford to pay more because of stocks is only partially true.

Tech companies pay in stocks because they choose to, not just because they can. And they pay employees more because they look at the revenue the employee brings. I interviewed at so many no traditional companies for tech roles and their attitudes about compensation is the reason they do not get the hires they want. Forget stocks, JP Morgan would not match the base salary that’s pretty much the standard at my level in my area, tech and non tech companies. Walmart would not match my overall compensation at my current role at a not so big, boring tech company that doesn’t dish out RSUs.