I wish I could say that I can't believe the conversation going on, but alas, I have been here before. Here is some friendly advice for those of you who were not working in the 90's:

1) This is HN and a lot of people here have drunk a lot of the start up Koolaid. I can understand that; especially in the kind of market we have right now. I should warn you, though, that some day the arbitrary measurements used for evaluating the worth of a startup will change dramatically. Yes, it seems like crazy talk right now, but some day the startup you work for will be evaluated based on sales, revenue and profitability not by how big your burn rate is, or how "disruptive" your technology is.

2) Some day aquisition and IPOs will be difficult and capital for companies without an amazing track record (of making money) will be hard to get.

3) There will be a time when stock prices will persistently go down; even if you work for the big amazing company whose shares have made X number of people millionaires. Some day you will find yourself working for the IBM of the mid 90s or the Microsoft of the early 2000s. You might even work for a Nortel and have a $100 per share price drop to 0 (as well as losing your job) over a year or two.

4) You can over price yourself. I know that seems stupid because obviously you can just price yourself to the market. That 30% increase you got from moving to another company can't be bad, right? Until that company tanks because they are paying stupid money to employees and nobody will hire you because you are too expensive. And when you realize it, and cut your expectations you've been out of a job for 6-8 months and nobody trusts that you can be any good because otherwise, why haven't you been snapped up by somebody else?

4) You can price yourself into a layoff. Sure your company is going amazingly well today. Your company got a $200 million cash infusion just last year, bumping the valuation up to $2 billion. There are 250 employees and your technology is super-awesomely-disruptive. But wait... there is a downturn in the market. Nobody will fund an IPO. You're running out of cash. No angel investors are showing up and revenue can only handle 100 employees. Let's look at the price/performace ratio of the current employees! Wow, Bob is good but... are we really paying him that much???

5) I'm sorry to say it, but IMHO programmers are not underpaid as a general rule. Money you don't negotiate into your pocket is not "left on the table". It's not like the money is piling up somwhere. Money that isn't spent on your salary is spent somewhere else. Companies have slim profits these days and concentrate on growth. Even large companies tend to tune their profits to about 5% and don't even pay dividends! R&D expenses in a company range from about 2-30%, but often hover in the 10-15% range of expenses. For a company whose revenue is driven by technology, that means that the 10% activity pays for the other 90% of the company. Some people are worth the extra 30% pay raise because it will drive the appropriate amount of revenue. I'm just going to have to say it, though: most people are not. If salaries go up 30% across the board, a lot of the companies you work for will tank. I'm not saying that you aren't worth the 30% extra. It's just that the attitude of "We're getting the shaft" is going to kill a lot of companies (as it has done in the past). There's a reason old timers joke about Aeron chairs and foosball tables.

These things I have seen and I'm sure I will see again.