Lowball, either because on ignorance (bro I have an app idea!), intention (fast buck artists preying on folks that don’t know better, maybe it’s a BS startup with 80k S.E. base and worthless ISO), or something like government.

Middle-Road, all the normal companies in all those “flyover” states or something to that affect. You’ll get paid a reasonable market rate for a reasonable expectation of work, e.g. an American 40 hours work week. If you’re lucky these might be a small tech-shop, but no flashy VC driven mania. I’ve worked at several, currently work at one. From the inside looking out the ZIRP issues are nonexistent, Cost-of-Living raises might not be as high as I’d like but I have 0 worries about the trends of tech layoffs I read of here.

Upper-Middle, places that are similar to Middle Road in that they are not flashy VC driven firms but “real” companies delivering profitable software or tech-enabled products and services but they also highly value their IT as a force multiplier. As a result the compensation might be a fair bit higher than Middle Road but nothing insane. You’re not walking about with 300-500k Total Comp. Nice 200k TC for a quality Senior here for a normal place of living. I’ve worked at one such firm but something of a unicorn.

Finally, VC world where the rules don’t matter and the points are made up… or something like it. Compensation is ludicrous and often detached from real-world value provided.

I know this is neither exhaustive scientific, but rather to play with the idea that there are different patterns of compensation than the 5 hours of work and 500k of compensation I see some thinking is both reasonable and deserved (trolling?)