$140k base is within the market band for a "good-but-not-great" Generic Engineer outside of FANG. "Say who?". Says the market -as long as businesses can place butts into seats at this rate, the price is right. Companies complain about the lack of talent like people complain about rent - I too want a better piece for less money, it's true.

> Is there some though leader going around in the startup space that is pushing a "140k should be enough for anyone" story?

Imagine a super lean startup with a handful of people. Engineer wants $200k, her manager reasonably expects a premium on that, and the CTO/CEO is one level higher. Now it costs $1M/yr for 3 people's fully loaded comp and a closet at WeWork. Yes, Google & co can pay this and more because 1) their main challenge is how to build warehouses fast enough to store all that incoming cash and 2) they don't pay people to work there, they pay people to not work at competitors or start their own thing. Elsewhere, this comp strategy is commercial suicide, unless you're building logistic apps for the cartel or doing gambling, which is about the same thing.

From another angle, there are silverback VCs saying their CEOs should not be paid more than $150k. Jungle rules take over, and it's quite understandable that people two levels below shouldn't have salaries higher than the head of the troops.

> How can I possibly be worth the exactly same amount across each of my different skills to different business models in different niches?

What that Generic Engineer does is about as interesting as what a generic accountant does - i.e. not at all, and will change in 2-3 years anyway. Frontend/backend/ops use different acronyms, but engineers will engineer. For example, look at people involved in the revenue pipeline: pre-sales, post-sales, customer success, relationship manager, account executive, etc. These are all totally unique snowflake special roles until you take half a step back and hey from here I can barely tell them apart from marketing or customer service folks.

> I am happy to be paid out of the money that I went out and brought in, but every company I have talked to is incredibly allergic to any suggestion that I be paid real money for the value I deliver

The process of writing software is among the trivial parts of building a software startup. Development work is rarely connected to cashflows, and should not be incentivized as a rev-share based on specific feature/module. How much $$ is it worth to do CI/CD, or SSO? No one would do that work. Even if there was a feature requested by a big client, how much of that money should go to the UX person, QA person, sys admin, lawyer who reviewed the contracts, sales person who negotiated the deal, the property manage who keeps the roof over your head etc. Firms exist as a way to removing transaction costs among these professionals, who create more value together than independently. Suggesting you 'deserve' X% is a signal that you may undervalue contributions from professions other than your own and that feeds the default "bad culture fit" world view.

> when I offer to focus exclusively on a single business as an employee then suddenly they can only see 1/3rd the value in the same work!

"I love you, but we let's stay friends" means she doesn't love you. If you have a relationship with existing clients, know they business, and they decline you offers to get more serious for <50% TCO, this is a big red flag. Maybe they don't have the money etc, but more likely they do not see value in the work which should be fascinating to dissect and understand, before re-packaging yourself to strangers.