I doubt that a person would have to drop to 75000$ to work at valve, i would imagine they can compete given how comically different their income streams are.
I think this an interesting thing, where I think if you have the skill and savings to work in games, nobody is going to choose Epic which have provided little in value overall as far as actual useful consumer things go outside of free games, that steam has had for a long time (steam controller system, quality online save sync and mulitplayer, proton????, etc) over either an indie studio or a place like valve where (from my personal perspective) it seems like real innovation is happening -- between things like the steam deck and it being not only a really intersting powerful and open device but it also being repairable, to it also running linux and also things like their vr headsets where they at this point set the standard for a real premium experience, even occulous with all of Facebook's money hasn't created an experiencing that comes close to how amazing half life alyx is.
I hope valve succeeds in all their endevours because while I can only assume their efforts are not altruistic, they have improved so much of the linux ecosystem for what so far has only been at their own expense.