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Comment by bradlys | Hacker News Reader

> I've never made FAANG/startup income

> we're desperately trying to hire

Do you wonder why people aren’t joining?

Yeah. We can’t compete with the numbers I see the SV folks making. Most of our work is directly billed to the customer so we need reasonable rates if we’re ever going to win bids. We can’t just live off of monopoly-level ad revenue.

The extremely high paid FANG income is a thing of the past, already down 50% ytd. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted.

Salaries at FANG have been cut 50% in the past 12 months? I have to give that a massive Citations Needed.

Total comp has likely come down, not salaries.

If a significant part of your comp is in stock, then yeah, that portion of your pay is down potentially 70% or more in six months (Netflix). There’s probably some employees at FAANG that are negative on their equity.

AAPL still up 10%+ YoY. Msft not technically FANG (MAGA?) and also up YoY.

Netflix historically paid in all cash. Recently, they started letting their employees choose.

> Recently, they started letting their employees choose.

lol didn't want to be the last ones holding the bag. What a scumbag move.

paid cash on the way up, paying stock on the way down, lol

They mean total comp, which is probably true since lots of people include their stock price appreciation when they talk about their total comp.

Even so, a 50% decline over the last 12 months is impossible. Of the FAANG companies, only Netflix is down more than 50%, and Netflix is notable for compensating people in mostly cash. Someone's compensation would have to be 100% stock and even then it wouldn't be down 50%.

If you think those comps were only from last two years - I suggest you go back in historical data. $400k+ wages have been a thing well before the pandemic.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. High comps have existed forever, but they have also been handed out like candy the last few years.

If you're in the bay it might be hard to see, but high comps spread rapidly across the country, to Canada and to some parts of Europe. It became more commonplace hence why everyone and their dog has been trying to get into the industry.

I have yet to see comp go down at the high end.

High end tends to be equity heavy, and equity has dropped in value massively this year. Not sure how common it is to issue refresher grants of RSUs to top up the total comp.

Source?

Completely untrue. Just finished up my interview process and my experience was that comp is higher than ever at the strong FANGs (I.e not Netflix). Microsoft and Amazon just massively bumped their comp maximums. Google was good as ever. Pre-ipos cash comp is still very strong although they are currently relying on previous stock valuations so the comp isn’t as good as they claim right now

What do you mean by finished up your interview process?

And when was your experience, and what was comp for all these places?

The salary also depends on where you live. If you get a salary from a small company in a place where is cheap to live, you might have the same level of living as someone working for a FAANG in The Bay Area.

for FAANGers, how does everyone feel about their wild comps now that the stock prices have come back to earth?

Back down to whose earth?

Even if you’re only making $250K, that puts you well within the top 10% of earners in the US.

I think Amazon has seen the largest drop out of the BigTech companies and it is down 30% year to date. Amazon has been adjusting SDEs cash component up even before the crash.

Netflix should have never been put in the same category as the 1 trillion+ market cap companies.

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