your argument is sound, but i'm not sure how this contradicts my statement. my point is this: they want people who want to be at google, and offering a lower s

your argument is sound, but i'm not sure how this contradicts my statement. my point is this: they want people who want to be at google, and offering a lower salary (or not the highest salary) is one way of filtering for those people -- because they are willing to take less compensation to work at google. working at google and working at citibank are like two products on the market. if you value one more than the other, you're willing to pay more -- that is, accept lower compensation. of course, they will pay more for engineers they deem valuable (as in your example) and even mercenary exceptions who are supremely talented and well-suited for a strategic task. but this doesn't invalidate the notion that a lower base salary helps filter out people who assign little value to working at google.