And in some ways, the average SE is still in the same realm as someone making a third of what they do. Many are still just one particularly bad string of unfortunate events away from financial ruin, and it’s not even necessarily their fault with how high CoL is in many places now.

In terms of planes of existence, most SEs live on a layer much closer to those inhabited by the average person than they are to the layer that big tech C-suites and the like exist on.