Microsoft back in the day and today still doesn’t pay top dollar. So you can’t get top talent with 65th percentile pay.

Microsoft used to have a location advantage, the Seattle area was a lot cheaper than the bay area.

They've long since lost that advantage.

California has a weather advantage over rainy Seattle though.

This is wrong. OpenAI has almost no upside now at these valuations and there is a >2 year effective cliff on any possibility of liquidity whereas Meta is paying 7-8 figures liquid.

Metas problem is that everyone knows that it’s a dumpster fire so you will only attract people who only care about comp which is typically not the main motivation for the best people.

It's not a 2 year cliff: it's 6 months before vesting, then 2 years before you can sell.

Effective cliff. What use is vested “equity” (ppus aren’t even equity) that you cannot sell?

It means that you can keep those shares even if you leave. Otherwise the term vesting cliff would be meaningless at any startup where the shares are not liquid.

They are yours. That’s a huge difference between a real cliff and illiquid stock.

If you decide you don’t like it, you take what’s vested after the cliff and leave. Even if you have to wait another year and a half to sell, you still got the gain.

Massive difference. You can vest and move on, even if you don’t have liquidity, which most private companies don’t for employees anyway.

Except you can only sell a prescribed amount at an undetermined time. By the earliest possible sell date you have already made 8 figures liquid at Meta.

Ok, but that’s a trade off anyone who works for a private company makes, and it’s never called an “effective cliff”.

Ok fine, 8 figure opportunity cost if that makes you feel better.