Start-ups don’t have to pay Google or FB size comp to attract people who like to work in start-ups but my feeling is that if they want to compete for the senior

Start-ups don’t have to pay Google or FB size comp to attract people who like to work in start-ups but my feeling is that if they want to compete for the senior end of the talent pool they are going to have a hard time. Most start-ups are offering what I call below-mortgage compensation. Simply put to not be house poor your mortgage is supposed to be 30% of your pre-tax income. You can calculate what a typical mortgage on a property looks like and extrapolate the payment but $90,000 USD is pretty reasonable in the Bay Area. That takes $300,000 USD/year to not be house poor. As long as start-ups continue to treat unsellable equity as sellable RSUs and offer similar base to google they get almost no one who needs to pay a mortgage. And I’m willing to bet a fair number of start-ups have failed from being too junior in engineering.