A lot of comp increases over the last ten years have been due to the stock market. Salaries haven't gone up much or down from the last eight years in big tech,

A lot of comp increases over the last ten years have been due to the stock market. Salaries haven't gone up much or down from the last eight years in big tech, it's stock comp that has gone through the roof, and that is an artifact of companies having to entice employees to leave their appreciated, unvested shares. In addition, huge scaled up deca-corns were offering huge comp packages (higher than FAANG) to make up for their loss of liquidity, so the profitable big tech companies had to pay up to at least retain some of their employees. There are a lot less giant scale ups these days, so you're seeing less focus on retention packages. That being said, the right candidates can still go get ~$350k from Amazon and more from other FAANGs, etc.