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> You seem to be postulating a pretty massive market failure if some incremental transparency around salaries at a few Silicon Valley firms would increase salaries to that degree.

We know for a fact there was massive market distortion by deliberate employer action; that would arguably have an effect similar to that of massive market failure.

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We know there was a lawsuit related to employer collusion that supposedly depressed salaries. How much is a matter of debate given that the salaries in question are pretty high by any measure. So I question whether there was a "massive" market distortion.

The parent argument was that a different form of what some might also call collusion--publishing salaries in the context of setting the going rate as large law firms apparently do--would instead massively (2-3x) increase salaries at those same firms.

I'm not sure openly publishing salaries is collusion, which usually is a (secret) attempt by a few players to set prices for everyone. Like in the law firm example, all this affects only the top companies. Also, different structures can create economics outcomes that vary by 2-3x, no market failure needed. Take a look at a small example like Hired.com - firms openly bidding on engineers has resulted in salaries that seem to be 50-100% higher than those achieved absent such a structure.

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