zlacker

>>zuhaye+(OP)
Based on what I've seen/heard, they seem to follow a similar comp philosophy to Netflix -- pay top of market to get the best people.

But it's also important to note that only $300K of that is in cash. The other $600K is in profit participation, which could take years (maybe even a decade!) to be realized. It could also be worth $6M a year when it's realized.

But ultimately it's an investment of your time. Or to think of it another way, you're getting paid $900K a year but you're also investing $600K a year in OpenAI, which may end up being an amazing return or nothing at all, just like any startup investment.

Although with Sam at the helm, my guess is it will probably be worth more than $600K a year.

>>jedber+l7
Honestly, if you take 300k home, the risk isn't that high. But the reward is insane.

>>jocaal+uc
That person could probably be making 500k+ at a FANG with less variance in the stock component.

>>QIYGT+Wg
I read this here and there and don't doubt it, but then again I've never seen/met anyone IRL (outside of C-level) making this much money as an employee.

Are they just extremely rare cases or am I just not aware of the valley and their customs?

>>morale+Nu
I believe you are just not aware.

C-Level folks make many millions a year, either liquid or paper.

I am at FAANG and virtually everyone at L6 (staff Eng level, many thousands of people) is paid at least $500k, with monthly liquidity (no cliff).

With a bit of luck stock wise, it’s also not uncommon at all to get to $500k+ at L5 (senior eng level, many dozens of thousands of people).

Everyone in my SF network (hundreds of people) virtually make above $500k.

>>deanmo+Yw
> staff Eng level, many thousands of people

I don’t work at a FAANG so I could be totally off but I think there’s only about 1,000 L6+ at google [0] and they employ the most. So it’s not thousands of people at this level within a company. Maybe only a few thousand in total of all companies in the US.

[0] https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-at-each-level-of-t...

>>prepen+hC
I firmly believe you are off by an order of magnitude at least.

First, the comment you linked is 7 years old. Most FAANG companies increased their headcount many fold ever since.

Second, there is such a thing as title inflation, over time more and more people get promoted to their terminal level, which at my FAANG is very often L6, each tiny team has always at least one or two of them. There are many, many more than 937 L6s at my company. Hell, I know for a fact that there are several hundreds of distinguished engineers (L9) at my company, which is an incredibly hard level to reach, so do the math and then scale it across the entire valley.

Third, do not discount my comment about L5 compensation reaching that $500k+ level very often. L5 represent a very large portion of the talent pool, probably the first or second largest (after L4).

You clearly do not have to believe me nor take my word for it. Not a problem. I just want to make sure other readers hear both sides of the conversation.

>>deanmo+IC
I'm an L5 at Google and don't even remotely make $500k. About half that, depending on how GOOG stock does. Yes, that huge number is probably not unheard of, but "not unheard of" doesn't mean it's common. So either 1. I'm absolutely terrible at negotiation or 2. Online comp statistics suffer from bias where people excited about their salaries tend to report it and the majority don't. I know levels.fyi tries to correct for bias, but it's very, VERY hard to believe $500k is COMMON for L5. Yes they probably exist. Yes, HN commenters probably skew towards "highly skilled" so you're going to see a lot of high comps here. No, we're not all even within striking range of $500k.

And L6 is very, VERY senior. Not ridiculously senior like the aristocracy at L7+ but L6s are rare and there's probably one of them for every ten L5's. L5 to L6 is a major weed-out promo, and not many people get that far. I've been trying for 5 years.