How do you know, objectively? Have you tried paying twice (or more) the current market rate, for instance, and binary search for a point where you have enough happy hires and failed? Perhaps the market rate is artificially lowered.
Edit: Didn't realize you weren't the person I originally replied to. Let's reverse your question. What is the objective basis for the claim that engineers are asked to sacrifice to much for too little pay?
I have one possible answer for this issue: Well, no one in the Valley (to best of my knowledge) really advertises that they are going to pay a meaningful multiple of what's considered the market rate to potential employees. So from the potential employee side, it is reasonable to assume that they are going to get paid around the "market rate".
The Valley seems to be at a point where "starting/not starting a startup" is becoming an IQ test (compared to "market rate") financially if you think you are reasonably good at doing stuff, so it is natural that good engineers wouldn't go and apply for a job, because the expectation for compensation is unlikely to be satisfactory anyway (or at least that's what they believe and prevents them from trying).
>And you dodged my questions.
Oh, I am not the OP and I'm not pretending to have the answers. I was genuinely interested in knowing how you measured that you are paying very well, except for the fact that they were competitive with what's considered the "market rate" which is the questionable piece of data here.
Another interesting wrinkle to this is the fact that hiring someone at a high salary is a big gamble. How confident can you really be after interviewing someone?
