Thanks for the link. This is an important part of this discussion, and something I don't understand well. If I'm going to compare compensation in different fiel

Thanks for the link. This is an important part of this discussion, and something I don't understand well. If I'm going to compare compensation in different fields, it's important to know how variable compensation, like stock options or overtime, figures in. This is especially important in software vs nursing, since variable pay makes up a big part of software but overtime is rare, whereas overtime figures heavily into nursing but stock options are unusual. Note that according to the BLS link you provided, overtime is also excluded. My company stock has never been worth a dime - I worked for Sun Microsystems before it crashed, and later for a startup that went kaput. This is all a combination of timing, luck, choices, the ability (or lack thereof) to pick a winner. Clearly variable pay is worth a lot at google, facebook, and many early startups, but my story is absolutely not unusual - and on the other side of the coin, I can assure you that nurses do get a tremendous amount of value out of overtime. Furthermore, overtime pay is predictable: you work more hours, you get 1.5-2x more money. But this pay is also excluded from the comparison I made above. Without these considerations, the data is of limited value. FWIW, I have always been a little suspicious of how low the software engineer pay is on these surveys. Overall, though, I think that in spite of the noise, the general principle does hold, that pay and benefits are good enough in other fields available that there's no reason to be puzzled about the low to medium interest level in being a developer in Silicon Valley, that this all explained as rational behavior in labor markets among hard working, academically inclined people.