I think there are two core parts of the issue here: - he claims to be from a "unicorn startup" -- this matters a lot in SV for some reason - my impression, in

I think there are two core parts of the issue here: - he claims to be from a "unicorn startup" -- this matters a lot in SV for some reason - my impression, in SV, years of experience against salary seems to be a skewed bell curve where >= 2 years is near optimal and >= 5 years is too much (for whatever reason)