> At what point does people griping about poor compensation at startups... While there absolutely are startups offering unreasonably low wages, there are also

> At what point does people griping about poor compensation at startups... While there absolutely are startups offering unreasonably low wages, there are also a good number of startups where relatively young engineers with just a few years of professional experience are being paid well into the six figures annually. A lot of the complaints about "poor compensation" are misguided and based on unrealistic salary comparisons. Just because Company A has salaries 50% higher than Company B doesn't necessarily mean that Company B is offering "poor compensation." > Based on the recruiting contacts I get, there are some startups with massive amounts of cash in the bank that are still stingy on the salaries but will go on and on about equity even when they've raised several rounds at ever-higher valuations. So you'd prefer to go to work for a company that isn't increasing its valuation? If you think that a company's valuation is far too rich, by all means discount the equity you're offered. But also consider that your ability to predict a company's future value might not be very good. How many people claimed companies like Facebook and Twitter were already overvalued years before they went public? I'll readily admit that I'm guilty of this. > But, fortunately, there are also others that are starting to be willing to pay more cash at earlier stages. I'm far from convinced that this is a bad thing. That's great, but be mindful of how this affects runway. Such startups, if they don't hit the milestones required to get to the next round of funding, may not be able to continue paying you for very long.