lol, you don't think spending 3 years in Singapore (2 of which being National Service) will change someone's English to sound more like Singlish? Speaking 'proper' English in army will only make you repeat yourself 2-3 times until you finally give up and give it a more local spin. If you went to Cal/Stanford and studied EECS, that's superb -- though I have to say I'm a bit disappointed that you find this experience so far-fetched. You should know the average starting salary for engineers was about $60k, the good ones were pulling in the league $80k and the best ones were getting about $100k (these are at established companies though, not startups). I agree that $100k from a startup is a pretty uncommon offer. It's usually $60k or so with 0.2-0.4% for an 'early' joiner into a funded startup with say 5-10 people in it and a product that's already at least in the prototype stage (else they'd be founders and making $0). However you need to consider the specific case we are talking about: my colleague and I built the system up from almost scratch, with no VC funding, and making almost nothing at the time. We also had prior obligations that the company wanted to entice us to break -- my buddy had signed a $100k contract with a major tech company whereas I had to return to NS. Once we got funding and our prior obligations were calling us to leave, the founder & CEO needed to keep us at all costs. I'm not saying every startup pays this amount, nor would mine have given the offer in any other circumstance, but that's what happened. Ridiculous situation? Sure, but it happens. Bollocks? Nope.

SG can definitely rival the US in terms of opportunities, given you are in the right position and industry. You do realize that Google is a huge anomaly right?? And citing 'Facebook, Apple, etc' as more evidence is just the same. Having an EECS background from a top uni, have you been part of a startup or even properly researched how equity is divided and the potential to actually get acquired or IPO? If you did, you would know that the vast, vast majority will die within the first year or two after drawing no pay at all. The lucky few will get some funding, last a few more years, but ultimately most of these will still go under. Of the tiny fraction that manage to survive, most will break even or generate small amounts of profit (after expenses, salaries, etc), while only 1 or 2 will really make it 'big'. Of the people in these exceptionally rare companies, only a very small portion will make "millions or more". Save for your founders (who literally went through hell to get there, and still are super diluted by VC funding) and maybe early c-level execs, most hackers will have equity that is measured in basis points (1% = 100 basis points). A $100+ million acquisition / IPO is no joke, but the vast majority of people in the company will still only get a few hundred thousand in return, if even that. This one-time cashout is after years and years of slogging and really beating the incredible odds stacked against you... then what do they do? On the contrary, high-end bankers and traders can easily take home a few hundred thousand to millions each year.

Sure, hundreds if not thousands of hackers can make it big doing startups, but what is that relative to the population? You can't just read a few articles on how <random American kid in his 20s> became a billionaire and base a comparison of opportunities relative to countries on that. Sure, there may be a lucky few that are richer than bankers/traders, but try a comparison of the average techie vs. your average banker/trader. You can't make blanket statements generalizing industries and countries based on a specific group that is comprises much less than a percent of the population. If you play that angle, I'll can bring up hedge fund managers, who get multi-billion dollar bonuses every year. Talking about corner-cases and opportunity: what other country can claim multi-million dollar annual salaries for their politicians??

I never said that Singapore or Singaporeans generate the opportunities. I just said that there are opportunities in Singapore. Who cares who generates it? You keep talking about Singaporean companies -- when did anyone ever imply that Singaporean companies generate these great opportunities? I specifically mentioned global companies. I'm talking about the Singapore environment (namely, low taxes and a population that is self-limiting career-wise), not the ability for Singapore to create awesome companies.

Again, I'm sorely disappointed at the arguments you make and your pessimism towards life, especially since you went to a 'top 2 school in EECS' (right?). You can call me a failure, a loser, or whatever you want. It won't change my past, future, opportunities, or pay All I can say is that at least I've inspired and garnered the appreciation of various people from my post(s), which is worth the small amount of effort to write it.