I'm in semiconductor equipment R&D. The average $80k-$120k USD range is roughly correct overall. Facebook has plenty of monopoly money to throw around both from investors and from occupying a monopoly position. All the money that a company like Applied Materials, Micron, Naura, YMTC, etc. makes is hard earned. There is no flood of investor money to fill the gap if sales decline and competition is surprisingly fierce for something as complex and high barrier to entry as this.I'm a process engineer working in O&G, and makes 150k+ a year, not including bonuses. Another cousin of mine works for Facebook as a project engineer, he got a PhD in materials, and makes 200k/y. His wife who got a master's in CS makes around 150k.
The problem is you are looking at averages, I got a ton of cousins that I actual knows how much they make.
The total market size for semiconductor equipment ($100 billion) is smaller than Facebook's revenue ($116 billion).
This is why it's clown world. The entire semiconductor equipment sector's importance is probably a bit more important to the world than Facebook.