I'm sure there are exceptions (and it's way more likely that the very top are in FANGs, maybe the distinguished engineers making millions per year?) but I was never particularly impressed with the level of skills of average FANGs people.

The difference in compensation between NBA and local games is millions to nothing - between FANGs and other company there is a much smaller factor and there are way more perks in some small companies than in FANGs: less politics, no PIPs, remote, low tax / low cost of living locations, no 6m to prepare for an interview, riskier equities (if that's your thing), CTO path, etc.

All my FANGs friends ended up in smaller companies after having marked their CV as ex-Apple or ex-Google.

If I were younger and I was earning less and happy to sacrifice quality of life to live in some big city, I would spend the 6m prep-time and leetcode, just to have the FANG name on my CV and charge more to other businesses later on.