Dan Luu

Your own numbers from the previous tweet suggest ~1/30 US devs earns that much, which is ~1.8 standard deviations, which seems very close to “at least one, possibly two”.

The comment seems like it must >= one of: * mistaken * fabricated * deliberately misleading It would be surprising if someone with 20 years of experience working as a programmer was at one of these companies didn't make that much and found the idea that HNers could laughable.

He implies that people paid that well are so rare it's implausible that a few of them might comment in one thread, which can only be the case if $300k is extremely rare. He then asserts that he's in a position to know because he's at one of these companies.

This doesn't seem possible unless it's something like, he isn't a programmer, or he doesn't work in the U.S., or he works part time, or he isn't actually at a company that pays well, etc.

My guess is that he’s at a company he considers “top”, maybe Fortune 500, but like you guess not one that pays everyone well (Something like IBM?). I think his company grouping isn’t good, but 1/30 is not in the realm I’m comfortable arguing his use of the word “outliers”.