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Is the meta-leaning here that you should not hire programmers in the Bay Area, until you can pay $120-200K + stock for experienced guys, and 80-90K for top college grads?

Maybe that sets a hard target when you know to grow your start-up to the third developer, when bootstrapping. Can you pay someone 100-200k per year? Time to grow.

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No. For one, that was said 10 or 15 years ago and things change. Second, talented engineers (like everyone) value a variety of things other than money. Finally, other competencies are becoming as important or more so than raw engineering for a lot of companies.

Agree. Financial compensation is actually often much lower on the list of things software developers value at a company, particularly when they are 'A' players. Solving problems, working with other 'A' players, and stretching ones abilities become more important. You do have to pay competitively though.

I think "you have to pay competitively" is true and pretty much negates the claim that financial compensation is low priority.

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