The 'Startup Boom' is a disguised jobs fair for big corporations
This would be a very penetratingly insightful criticism if you had never heard of Airbnb, Dropbox, Twilio, etc etc.  Some people at the current classes of YC and 500 Startups may well find themselves working for AmaGooBookSoft in 4 years, and may that be a happy outcome for all concerned, but you've got to torture the math to come to the conclusion that hiring acquisitions are where most of the money is changing hands.That said, it totally makes sense for AmaGooBookSoft to pay at least some engineers amounts of money which historically were not awarded to technical employees.  This should be priced into everyone's expectations, startup-affiliated or no.