In theory, the engineers have incentive option plans with vesting terms that provide incentives that make them work cooperatively, and make the company more valuable, and less brittle, than an ibank. It is often suggested that ibankers receive their bonuses some years out from the year they earned them, otherwise there is an incentive to load up on future risk.

In practice, it looks like tech companies were able to avoid wage competition through collusion, while keeping their workers hopefully waiting for the option payout.

If collusion like this gets appropriately punished, wages should get bid up, along with option incentives.

An ibanker like compensation might work at a "hits" business like a casual game company, where there is strong reason to believe that whatever confection you are coding on this year isn't going to last beyond the vesting period for your initial option grant. If you overtly reward making hay while the sun shines, there would be less bitterness when it gets cloudy.