That's because those are the people most likely to apply to another job! The people I know getting the big packages aren't waiting to be "noticed." That's not likely to happen since they weren't recognized where they were. They took a proactive approach and shopped around for a new job.
Only then were their contributions recognized internally and the big offers were required to keep them as they were already pissed off.
Trust me, it's not the fast track people who are getting the giant paydays right now. Those people are sitting pretty and already have substantial awards and wouldn't bother interviewing elsewhere.
Having assisted in negotiating a couple of those multi-million dollar offers, that is absolutely correct. Most of those offers aren't going to "successful senior people." They're going to people who were repeatedly passed over for promotions despite doing great work (i.e., people who fail to manage their careers properly).
Attitudes like this is why I had to write a book about startups. In 2003, people said the same thing about Google. It turned out that yes, joining Google in 2003 had a very good chance of making you a millionaire, even if you weren't a star hire.
Guess what? Facebook is in the same situation Google was in 2003 today.
I don't think Google openly discusses it. At least, certainly if there was such discussion I wasn't privvy to it. I only felt free to post these thoughts post Google.
I think that it is possible to build a culture where the grunchy unsexy work becomes much less un-thanked. Microsoft at its best did it: Raymond Chen was much celebrated for his heroic efforts at preserving backwards compatibility in Windows. In fact, when the Raymond Chen camp lost its political battle, Microsoft got Windows Vista, which arguably cost it billions. I think the stakes are very high in exactly this sort of political battle, and it is worth while for top engineers to spend their time fighting for precisely this sort of culture shift.
I know several Apple and ex-Apple engineers. Let's just say that the environment isn't even comparable. Google wins hands down. One of my friends at Apple had to file for an information request so that she could debug a problem that spanned multiple layers of abstraction. A Google engineer faced with that kind of inanity would just quit.
That's a bizarre attitude. If you cookie cutter travel, you'll get cookie cutter memories. I travel my way, my style, at my pace, and at my speed. When I travel, I get invited into people's homes for tea, get introduced to their families, and get asked to stay. I get chefs coming out of retirement to cook me dinner, because I'm in a position where their hospitality really means something to me, and both they and I appreciate it.
There's no way I would give up travel. If you think travel sucks, you're doing it wrong.
OK, since I have retired to travel and write, I'll chime in here. The writing part is fun, and being able to do it on my own terms (i.e., not kowtow to a publisher/editor's need to sell books by the pound rather than by content) was worth it to me.
The travel is even more so. I'd taken vacations before, but always came back wishing I had 1 or 2 more weeks more. With a day job, it was hell asking for 5 weeks or so. Now, I just go. And I no longer come back wishing I had another 2 week. The indignity of having to ask for permission always annoyed me, but I didn't realize how annoying it was until I didn't have to ask.
Ultimately, I think you have to ask what it is that drives you. Some people like being bosses and being able to lord it over their underlings. Those people will never retire, and they shouldn't. Their self-worth is dependent entirely on other people being subservient to them and their goals. But many INTJ types (especially engineers) don't have self-worth tied to the opinions of other people. Such people historically do very well in retirement, and retirement is not a bad goal for them: http://retireearlyhomepage.com/mbti.html
People tell me how much they're getting. The numbers do go up to 7 figures even for rank and file engineers. But if I wrote a post about how to get that kind of money, I'd be accused of being even more cynical (I'm already accused of being very cynical when I wrote this article). Besides that kind of information should really go into the next edition of my book.
Google can and does hand out big bonuses. There's so much cash flowing through the company that a little sprinkle of it (by Google's standards) is still a lot of money. If you're one of the fast-tracked folks at Google, there is no reason to join a startup just for the money.
Good points. I don't think interiews ever became hazing rituals. What happened instead was that a lot of folks got burned out on interviewing, and because interviewing was never taken seriously as a priority, interview training was outsourced to an outsider. That led to a number of travesties.
I don't know if I disliked a lot of things about Google. Otherwise, I would have left long before my 6.5 years. I turned down requests to join other companies while at Google. I couldn't have disliked that much of it. :-)
Only then were their contributions recognized internally and the big offers were required to keep them as they were already pissed off.
Trust me, it's not the fast track people who are getting the giant paydays right now. Those people are sitting pretty and already have substantial awards and wouldn't bother interviewing elsewhere.