The reason the poster arrived at this is that they are valuing stock options as $0. Of course there are non-FAANG companies with liquid stock, but this seems no

The reason the poster arrived at this is that they are valuing stock options as $0. Of course there are non-FAANG companies with liquid stock, but this seems not to enter the calculation. If you were to consider those, you'd find that while FAANG pays well, it's not _that_ much of a premium. What's certainly true is that stock is a significant piece of the total comp at a FAANG and a startup is unlikely to make up much (if any) of that difference in base salary. For instance base salary for me as an L8 at Google is roughly 1/3 of my total comp.