Agree with all points - and to add, part of the problem with all this is that developer pay has incredibly high variance and in general knowledge of salaries is

Agree with all points - and to add, part of the problem with all this is that developer pay has incredibly high variance and in general knowledge of salaries is poor. It's not that many people choose lower-paying startups for the enjoyment, satisfaction, etc, while fully aware of how much more BigCo pays - many simply aren't aware of how much more BigCo pays. Many are not even well informed on how much startups pay. Many are also not aware of the proper math around their startup equity, which results in a large overestimation of its value even in the case of success - I'd say it's not uncommon to see startup employees overestimate the value of their equity by ~10x. Most haven't seen the cap table at all, which means they don't have the ability to estimate the value of their equity at all. I've seen this in real life where people - not new grads either, experienced industry folk - express shock at the sizes of offers Google, Facebook, et al are throwing around. We've seen this here, where revelation about how much many engineers make routinely elicit shock - and even hostility - and this is a demographic that particularly cares.