Define &quot;smaller company&quot;.  Because half-a-million a year is not likely to resemble anything you&#x27;ll get from anywhere outside the companies who are known to pay comparatively very, very high IC and mid-tier management salaries (Google, LinkedIn, Netflix, VMWare, etc.).<p>I know a lot of people working at a lot of very successful &quot;smaller companies&quot; (for my definition of smaller), and none of them make as much as that.  This includes many VP&#x27;s, SVP&#x27;s, and the like.