> If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in al

> If a company knows how to get choose a USD200k engineer in SF and get a good return for the company off that engineer, then why wouldn't you pay USD200k in all areas? If you're willing to buy a $2 million property in Palo Alto, would you pay $2 million for the exact same property in West Mississippi? To a company an employee is a commodity investment only - no matter what the culture manifesto says. There are a lot of factors that determine who gets paid what.