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The article says:

> The thinking here is that SaaS/PaaS companies require more infrastructure, better/higher quality infrastructure, more bandwidth, and more senior/seasoned engineers.

It's less cool therefore it costs you extra money. That's why engineers in finance cost more than non-finance engineers.

I would imagine part of it is that SaaS and PaaS startups have an easier path to revenue. For most of them, a single user means revenue, which means you have more wiggle room for salary. It's also easier to do long term planning if you have recurring revenue streams and possibly multi-year contracts.

Higher up front infrastructure costs would be my guess.