Big tech companies are sweat shops, offering just enough pay to have the TOP end of an upper-middle class lifestyle (after sufficient robbery by the tax man, since you're not quite rich enough for any of the Trump-esque tax loopholes to apply), in exchange for the expected 60-80 hour weeks. You still have to work for a living, and you're competing in Stack Ranking with the majority of employees who are visa workers (hiring visa workers is a PLUS for these companies) that will happily sacrifice their family life and weekends to avoid deportation by being slotted into the "bottom 10%" during the bi-annual performance review (which means you get fired). Sure, it's a local optimum for a lot of people (work insanely hard and sacrifice your health to drive a Porsche/Tesla and own a house/luxury condo in a top-tier city), but make no mistake, it is a second-tier lifestyle.
On the other hand, people from Harvard and Yale are UPPER class -- not upper-MIDDLE class. This means they have last names like Bush or Clinton, get ushered into upper management or C-level at their father's companies, go "work" for cushy jobs at rentseekers like PE/VC/real estate with corporate credit cards, run for office, repeatedly start failed companies, or go indefinitely "exploring" or "finding the next thing to do" (courtesy of their trust fund).
Meanwhile, the vast majority of my graduating class is slaving away as entry-level rat racers at FANG, investment banks, legal, Big 4, medical residencies, etc.
