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