> I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany That's the reason. Europe is not really the place for making a fortune. It has the "Liberté, égalité, f

> I work in one of those which you mentioned in Germany That's the reason. Europe is not really the place for making a fortune. It has the "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" mindset, which leads to the fact that starting salaries for software devs (even after a PhD, as in my case), in the country where that motto is official, are within a standard deviation from bus drivers. Magnitude of this varies, but unless you're a no-life breathing for the bonus in a hedge fund, you're not going to earn 10x. BTW, typically you don't need an accident to know what others are earning. I easily got samples of different pay grades, in different companies in two European countries, just by asking them directly. People are surprisingly open about that.