I don&#x27;t know about 250k, but there is a lot of money to be made at a big company.  I am not a &#x27;SWE&#x27; at Google so these are not my numbers, but I know it&#x27;s pretty normal for people to see this out of college:<p>~110k salary
~60 shares of GOOG per year (so right now about 45k)
~15% bonus (so 15k, conservative)<p>That right there adds up to 170k and that&#x27;s entry level.  Get a promotion or two (could be a 20% increase if you&#x27;re lucky) plus the general year-to-year raises to keep up with the market and you&#x27;re looking at 250k being possible before you&#x27;re 30.<p>Now of course this can&#x27;t be everyone.  But it&#x27;s a lot of people, and anyone who is going to be competent enough to keep a startup afloat is probably good enough to rise a rank or two at Google&#x2F;Apple&#x2F;Facebook&#x2F;etc.