It seems like this is a large part of the issue. He mentioned a few times he was promoted and well compensated. In order to get promoted you have to "exceed" expectations for your current level, which by definition means he went above and beyond what would have been normally been expected of him. Looking at his LinkedIn he got promoted from Mid level to Senior, to Staff engineer. Very few people at big tech companies achieve Staff engineer level.

His LinkedIn also says he joined Airbnb in 2016 which means his stock is worth multiple millions since IPO.