Yeah, people should think of this like "what if Google engineers started at $45k salaries instead of $120k+?" They could work for years to get up to that same $300k+ level but they're starting much lower and expected to just take it (and the ultra high mountain view/SF cost of living).
That’s half of it. To get the full pilot experience add “and what if when senior Google engineers left for Apple or Microsoft or Facebook they had to start as junior engineers again at junior pay and could only be promoted back up after the junior engineers already there were promoted?”