It's a function of company size. You can get North of $300K + options from the larger valley companies if you're good at what you're doing (though they will attempt to lowball you and they definitely discourage you from sharing that bit of info with your colleagues), somewhat less than that at smaller companies (but if there are options involved you'll get a larger chunk of a (much) smaller pie).

At even smaller companies you can be co-founder with substantial risk and associated rewards if it works out well. It's basically a risk management issue, if you don't want a lot of risk and a reasonably high pay with a potential upside you can't beat the giants, if your needs are small and you can deal with the occasional loss it may pay off to gamble.