Its because startups have become much &quot;cooler&quot; now, compared to back then. Plus its hard to get good returns investing elsewhere. Plus the lowered-bar (i.e. cloud) to starting a large scale company<p>So this pushes more people to do it, more companies, more investors ... and so over time &quot;stuff gets figured out&quot; and optimized and here&#x27;s where we end up.<p>For instance, pretend you have a water leak and call 5 plumbers...how many of them charge basically the same (high) price ...<p>I too had an experience like you ... company IPO&#x27;d in 2001 and many initial engineers got $5+M including someone who started as the admin ... turning $2m into $1BN with no addiitional funding or down-rounds will do that :)