What are "market rates"? As far add I know, most startups can't compete with Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Netflix on salary (plus bonus). If market salary is

What are "market rates"? As far add I know, most startups can't compete with Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Netflix on salary (plus bonus). If market salary is what big cos like Cisco and oracle are paying the I guess some startups pay market rate for a software engineer. But assuming I'm talented enough to join your startup, I don't think it'd very accurate to say I'm being paid market rate when I could get a lot more somewhere else.