> hold on, you can make $300k? Wait a second, that’s not a senior executive salary? That’s a normal-ish bourgeois white-collar HCoL salary that people make fresh out of school? Hold on, that’s basically a starting salary in that world? WHAT?

Is this world as normal and common as you describe? To me it seems more like a byproduct of a brief era in tech, today only accessible to people already in the system or creme of the crop students going to the right institutions and who have the skills, connections or luck to string together events that lead to them working there. Today, I know loads of people who did the right thing, but my current generation of graduates definitely isn't aiming for $300k starting salary, not even the best people I know can dream of that. Maybe it would be better to use a more grounded example, since many average workers in many careers will still take home considerably more than most PhDs - instead of using what feels like a closing window from a gold rush.

> But half the people call you a class traitor.

That doesn't make sense. You don't even change your class, you go from working for a wage to working for a wage. I only see the other reaction you mention, the "you're done, it's over, you wasted your life".