> I'd bet there are hundreds or thousands of genius programmers living in Russia, Brazil, the Balkans, Guatemala and many other countries that simply couldn't l

> I'd bet there are hundreds or thousands of genius programmers living in Russia, Brazil, the Balkans, Guatemala and many other countries that simply couldn't land a job at FAANG even if they wanted to. I could make more money as a waiter in Germany or Austria than in my devops job in the Balkans, but a) money isn't always the main motivation, especially in Europe and b) the same amount of money goes a lot further than in Silicon Valley. It's not that comparable.