Oh, I believe developers who get paid that exist. But they're the exceptions who happen to all meet each other because they get sent to conferences and are team

Oh, I believe developers who get paid that exist. But they're the exceptions who happen to all meet each other because they get sent to conferences and are team leaders or primary devs on large open source projects and such. If they were the rule the average salary would be 100k but it isn't, and all the 100k + devs you supposedly know aren't enough to move it. I wouldn't take 80k to work in New York either, hence why so many startups whine about not being able to find 'talent.' The 'shortage' is mostly a symptom of companies only wanting to hire these celebrity developers who already make a lot of money (and Stanford grads). Likewise, the hoops you have to jump through in job interviews would be shrinking if people were really desperate to hire, but instead they're growing. Have a giant github. Do two 4 hour technical interviews. Only apply after solving 2 to 5 programming problems. Etc.