$500K? Not Enough to Woo Google Programmer

Business Insider has a tale from Silicon Valley that might be educational for tech entrepreneurs looking to build a staff or college freshmen trying to figure out a major: The founder of a successful startup wooed a Google programmer with a seemingly generous salary offer of $500,000, only to learn that the programmer currently made $3 million a year in cash and stock. "He blew us off," says the exec.

Most Google engineers aren't making anywhere near that kind of money, according to GlassDoor.com, but it shows that Google in particular is willing to shell out big money to retain talent. And it supports the case of this blogger at Forbes who argues that Silicon Valley in general has better engineers than, say, the National Security Agency. (More Google stories.)