I was at Google for a time during the tail end of this time period, as well. I cannot claim anecdote to match data, but the pay of people I knew of, as well as my starting pay both there and at Microsoft, do sit in the "slightly higher than 100k" range. (After writing this, I realized I hadn't calculated in stock options well, which probably pushes it up towards 200k, but not so high that the "higher end of 100k" seems unreasonable) Perhaps I'm simply a low-end engineer, and the mean values are in fact higher, but this was my experience.

Having been at Google as well, you can tell me if you shared my experience that seemed the most enlightening about this, that during the various periodic review processes, there seemed no question of "are you adding additional value, should you be compensated as such." This is a discussion that I haven't had at any of the tech jobs I've worked, in that I've honestly never felt my wages were in any meaningful way tied to the value I contributed. (qualifier, I think I've fell on both sides of this line, in that it hurt and helped me, I just find the lack of incentive alignment may be the "way to approach this problem")