I don’t know much about mkt or bizdev from the angle that you’re describing (software in SV ?) but what pops out from your post: you sound a lot more excited ab

I don’t know much about mkt or bizdev from the angle that you’re describing (software in SV ?) but what pops out from your post: you sound a lot more excited about bizdev than PM. Basically your post reads “I think I’ll love sales but what about the pay and status ?” From that angle, what I learned (took me 10 years) is that you’ll be much happier doing what you love than chasing status. And that it’s almost always worth it to take a chance and explore a new domain. Your longer-term goal is also somewhat unclear. You state that you’re a prospective founder (in which case: learn sales!) but then you ask “is an AM a step down from PM” which kinda implies you’re looking at it from a corporate ladder perspective. So maybe think about what your long-term goal is (but I don’t believe it should trump the “do what you like” advice). Finally, to try to answer your questions. I’ve rarely met badly paid salespeople - in fact, they’re notorious for negotiating everything from compensation to company car to bonus objectives to other perks. Put it another way, if they can’t sell themselves they’re not going to be very good at their job... The prestige of sales vs marketing very much depends on the type of company you’re working for. Sales / bizdev pull a lot more weight in high touch settings: large contracts, enterprise / B2B customers, complex products, bespoke solutions. In this type of company marketing folks are glorified copywriters. Sure they nominally define the roadmap and priorities but when a 1M$ customer rolls in with a bespoke requirement, you best believe the dev team will work on that requirement first, while the AM smokes a cigar with the CEO and the PM is left crying over their Gantt chart. More generally, if your business depends on a few large customers the sales team, as a proxy for these customers, rules the roost. In low-touch settings (basically when you have enough customers that you can meaningfully do stats on them and none of them really stand out in terms of revenues), the PM is the most credible voice of the customer and calls the shot; sales people are glorified car salesmen hawking a standard product and haggling on a 5% rebate. I believe it’s impossible to have simultaneously strong sales and marketing teams in a company, due to the dichotomy described above. So the answer is “it depends” :) but you can choose a domain where your chosen role has more power and status.