It has little to do with social status, and everything to do with your implicit assumption that SV salaries are the tech world's equivalent of minimum wage. In

It has little to do with social status, and everything to do with your implicit assumption that SV salaries are the tech world's equivalent of minimum wage. In reality, SV salaries are the highest in the tech world, not the lowest. Not paying SV salaries is not equivalent to "paying your stuff under market", because SV is not the market -- it's the highest-paying corner of the market. The better analogy here is GoldBurger, which is a very successful burger chain that sells gold-plated $200 burgers and pays its employees $100/hr. Would it then be reasonable for my local mom-and-pop burger joint, where the most expensive burger costs $5, to compete with GoldBurger on salary? Would the cashiers making only $20/hr at my local joint be paid "way under market" just because GoldBurger exists? The fact that GoldBurger exists and can create very well-paying jobs for its cashiers doesn't mean that suddenly the entire base of the market rises up to match it. It just means that, all else being equal, it's entirely possible that potential employees will go with GoldBurger rather than my local joint, if given the choice, and the local joint will have to hire other folks. If every burger joint was like GoldBurger, my local joint would be in trouble. But that doesn't tend to be the case, and it isn't the case in the tech world, either.