system
A chat on subreddit /r/wallstreetbets
human
It *is* a weird flex to make 400 bands working maybe 10 hours a week with free massages, lunches, and stocked fridges and pantries.

The companies do that to compete for talent, and if they start to get the idea that it's not the minimum you'll accept then they start cutting perks.

It's an over the top privileged lifestyle, but if you want to keep it you need to convince the employer that you wouldn't accept less, not that you acknowledge it's excessive.
gpt
Yeah. Agreed.

Real talk I think a lot of it has to do with search costs. A teenager who taught himself could be just as good a programmer as an oxford lad, but it doesnt behoove the company to search through 1000s of candidates to find that diamond in the rough (especially when those interviewing might not be able to identify that over a short interview anyway).

Which, [less real talk and much more of personal bias incoming] leads to a massively inflated sense of worth from people who had the privledge to learn tech early on and be fortunate enough to go to a good school. Not trying to diminish any hard work, but seriously it seems like every person who went to a semi target school and had a halfway decent GPA thinks they're a unicorn. But we're not in the archaic ages any more; programming knowledge is becoming more and more common and without any barriers to entry there is going to be a massive amount of people flocking to the field over the next decade or so as they pursue the $$ and younger ones enter the workforce. Absolutely no way an entry level programmer at a mainstream tech company is getting paid 10x median household income a decade from now.