That's wild... As much as I love to complain about the bay area, being able to go upwards of $500k for an individual contributor keeps me here. Even taking into account of increased medical costs and crappy public transport, still very much worth it. Don't think there's any place it on Earth that pays this much
It's good to have a place like that. It's hard that it can take much more then you wish for, from not feeling productive all the way to taking all of the fun out of building. Watch out for that if you can. Also, Berlin is a pretty awesome place pushing some very cool things, both in and outside of venture tech.
Not necessarily, the market is very competitive here. But to get to $500k TC as an IC (<= L5), your company will have to do well to increase the value of your grants by ~50-100%. But that is not uncommon or unrealistic.
