"Thousands and thousands" is an exaggeration, particularly considering the portion that is churn between them. There are over 3.87 million software developers

"Thousands and thousands" is an exaggeration, particularly considering the portion that is churn between them. There are over 3.87 million software developers in the US[1]. I would be shocked if even 10% of them are employed by the companies you mention Nationwide, let alone just in SV and Seattle. Of that, a minority pull down the massive TC you cite. I think that certainly qualifies as an outlier. Furthermore, the headcounts of the really big companies, particularly Amazon and Microsoft, are inflated by non-engineers. Citing them doesn't really say much. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demographics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineering_demogra...