not the op- but I think what he's implying is that all the good engineers are in golden handcuffs with the FANG or unicorn startups making $300k. In the old days you could match the base salary and say my stock is better. Today its harder when MSFT is 3x or Netflix has 5x in the last few years. Your startup stock of 100K with 10% probability of becoming worth 10x in a few years just doesn't sound attractive enough to a good engineer. If all the good engineers are taken, it sucks the life out of other startups.