So what explains it? I would guess both commenters got higher offers at the other company because they did so as part of the job search process instead of via the within-company promotion process.
Either this, or they may be looking at the value of RSUs at vesting (vs. at grant date) to calculate their (perceived) total compensation.
In the latter case they may see wild swings depending on how much the stock went up / down since the grant, and have the perception that they are "underpaid" vs. a friend in other company.
Google's food is good too, but people bitch about it. Arguably they bitch about it partly because it's free which commoditizes its value to zero so they don't value it. At least that's why I suspect Apple charges a subsidized rate.
I saw the same thing where I used to work which also had incredible food. When something is free entitled employees whine about it.
Now it's entirely possible that there is title inflation at Apple, so that a "senior" engineer at Apple is less senior than a senior engineer at Google. Or perhaps the samples are skewed differently per company. But when I lived in the Valley, the word on the street was that Apple paid less well than Google as a general rule. So the observed data on levels.fyi does match with whatever I heard in real life.
IMO initially it's possible that folks will not be deterred but that is truly a matter of time and space for the knowledge to be available, make its way through and then impact people's behavior.
FAANG is 70% retirees, 30% dipole candle burners. And the 30% provide the value, while the 70% are along for the ride.
See in 2005 when Google was gaining traction and notoriety, it was because they had the reputation of not suffering driftwood.
I was working for a giant transnational (full-on archaic org like that in "Office Space") at the time and found it really hard to fathom a company without apathy and drifters. I (foolishly) thought it ironic and dangerous that a company so determined not to suffers fools had free food, coffee, video games, table tennis, etc in the office. My office had an old crappy second-hand foosball table that was removed because it was "too much of a distraction" despite most people not using it from fear of a reprimand.
Fast foward nearly 20 years and I guess "corporate entropy" gets everyone, eventually.
I'm sure it depends on the company/team, but 70% of retirees, I think it's a myth.
So all the hard workers describe the place as hard working. All the slackers describe it as relaxing.
Among the ex-FAANG, the hard workers describe their team as slacking. I don’t have any ex-FAANG slacker friends. They just stayed.
I’ve got 10 years of friends here and I’m fairly social so I think I’ve gotten a somewhat large sample, at least (if not unbiased).