> so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity You're saying the average salary is $140K and "10x engineers" are compensated accordingly via

> so that you can get your 10x compensation in the form of equity You're saying the average salary is $140K and "10x engineers" are compensated accordingly via equity - that would be $1.4M! Many startups fail, and even if they're successful that doesn't automatically mean the equity is ever worth anything - and when it is worth something it's usually been greatly diluted by the time an exit rolls around. If you're lucky enough to be an early employee at the next Google or Facebook sure you can hit a seven figure payout - but for the vast majority they'll never seen 10x (or even 2x) compensation. And value of equity tends to have a lot more to do with getting in early rather than skill. The equity of a very early hire is almost always going to be substantially more than much later hires.