Nowdays a seed round is $1.5M. That could buy a startup 3 engineers at $200k/y in SF/LA/NY/Seattle for 16 months + $300k on distribution and misc. or 3 engineer

Nowdays a seed round is $1.5M. That could buy a startup 3 engineers at $200k/y in SF/LA/NY/Seattle for 16 months + $300k on distribution and misc. or 3 engineers at $150k/y in Switzerland and $600k in distribution and misc. as a founder I don't subscribe to giving 30-40% less than the top firms pay plus some basis points of equity worth something in the instance the company becomes a $10B company. and it makes little sense. Any great engineer can work at FAANG for $230k and still work on interesting problems even tho its riddled with politics. Paying 30%-40% less means you're not hiring the best, but mediocre people who have been rejected at FAANG or drank the startup kool aid.