Which is $167,202 in pre-pandemic, inflation-adjusted dollars.

That's the point. "$175k is good enough for me" doesn't mean much, especially as they also have a large stake in the company (not an assumption) as well as possibly other advantages (or not, they dont divulge).

Don't get me wrong. Rethinking comp is great and they are paying well. But you can't make the argument that X is enough for founders (plus let's forget equity!!) and so X is generous for everyone.

We all receive equity.

All the same equity, I assume?

No, it’s variable. This is covered in this thread and in the original article.

Eye roll. I get capitalism. It's OK. Just say "we do capitalism". Why pretend otherwise?

Nobody is pretending we’re not doing capitalism.