FAANG pays exceptionally well (I'd know), but what's being offered at OpenAI is eye-popping, even for SWEs. I think they're trying to dig their moat by absorbing the absolute best of the best.
Most of that is in their equity comp which is quite weird in how it works. So those numbers are highly inflated. The equity is valuable only if you sell it or if OpenAI makes a profit. Selling it might be harder given they're not a public company. On top of that, the profit is capped so there is a limit to how much money can be made from it. So while it's 900k on paper, in reality, it might not be as good as that.
https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html
https://www.levels.fyi/companies/openai/salaries/software-en...
FAANG pays exceptionally well (I'd know), but what's being offered at OpenAI is eye-popping, even for SWEs. I think they're trying to dig their moat by absorbing the absolute best of the best.