(Photo: thedrop.fm)

Looks like CEOs of venture-backed startups--particularly those in the B2B arena--really know how to lean in. Nick Tomaino, an associate at North American Capital, published a post today exploring the average salaries for the executive teams at NAC’s portfolio companies. (It promptly hit the front page of Hacker News.) As it turns out, leaders at "expansion stage" venture-backed startups--or at least those backed by NAC--are sitting pretty atop a mile-high mountain of dough.

According to Mr. Tomaino, the average salaries are:

AVG CEO - $260,833

AVG President/COO/CRO - $223,333

AVG CFO - $196,071

AVG CTO - $185,429

VP of Sales - $175,833

Keep in mind this doesn't include equity in the company, which, depending on how successful your business is, could end up being worth a lot more than your salary.

Though this data only speaks to expansion stage startups, Mr. Tomaino hopes to kick off a trend. He published these figures not to make you seethe with jealousy, but in the hopes that starting a conversation about startup salaries can help companies be more transparent about compensation:

Why does salary information have to be private? I don’t think it does, and I am convinced that it should and will become more transparent in the coming years. Salary should be a measure of how much value one is adding to a company, and that information should not be a secret.

Causing jealousy to consume you from the inside out was just the cherry on top.

Money where his mouth is.

Betabeat just received a marvelous little press release from Agate publishing on their new book, I, STEVE: STEVE JOBS IN HIS OWN WORDS, a 160 page collection of quotes from the most iconic product pitchman since P. T. Barnum.

The book, says Agate, is a natural companion to the long awaited biography of Mr. Jobs, coming soon from Walter Isaacson. Fortune writer Adam Lashinsky just announced a few weeks back that he'll be releasing a book on Steve Jobs in January. The macabre scrabble to be a part of Steve Jobs final years is in full swing.

Betabeat hasn't had time to read the entire book yet, but we picked out  few of our favorite quotes for you to savor on the subway ride home. The full book comes out in late October. 

After Apple management complained about the six Apple employees Mr. Jobs was taking with him to start NeXT: "I wasn’t aware that Apple owned me, you know. I don’t think they do. I think that I own me. And for me not to be able to practice my craft ever again in my life seems odd. We’re not going to take any technology, any proprietary ideas out of Apple. We’re willing to put that in writing. It’s the law, anyway. There is nothing, by the way, that says Apple can’t compete with us if they think what we’re doing is such a great idea. It’s hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300+people couldn’t compete with six people in blue jeans."—Newsweek, September 30, 1985

Apple has a core set of talents, and those talents are: "We do, I think, very good hardware design; we do very good industrial design;and we write very good system and application software. And we’re really good at packaging that all together into a product. We’re the only people left in the computer industry that do that."—Steve Jobs, interviewed by Jeff Goodell, “Steve Jobs: The Rolling Stone Interview,”Rolling Stone #684, June 16, 1994

"A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have."—Wired, February 1996

"What if Apple didn’t exist? Think about it. Time wouldn’t get published next week. Some 70% of the newspapers in the U.S. wouldn’t publish tomorrow morning. Some 60% of the kids wouldn’t have computers; 64% of the teachers wouldn’t have computers. More than half the Websites created on Macs wouldn’t exist. So there’s something worth saving here. See?"—Time, August 18, 1997

"I’m always keeping my eyes open for the next big opportunity, but the way the world is now, it will take enormous resources, both in money and in engineering talent, to make it happen. I don’t know what that next big thing might be, but I have a few ideas."—Steve Jobs on the “next big thing”, CNNMoney, January 24, 2000

"We don’t stand a chance of advertising with features and benefits and with RAMs and with charts and comparisons. The only chance we have of communicating is with a feeling."—The Apple Way, 2006

"We make tools for people. Tools to create, tools to communicate. The age we’re living in, these tools surprise you.… That’s why I love what we do. Because we make these tools, and we’re constantly surprised with what people do with them."—D5 Conference: All Things Digital, 2007

"One of the things I learned at  Pixar is the technology industries and the content industries do not understand each other. In Silicon Valley and at most technology companies, I swear that most people think the creative process is a bunch of guys in their early 30s, sitting on a couch, drinking beer and thinking of jokes. No, they really do.That’s how television is made, they think; that’s how movies are made. People in Hollywood and in the content industries, they think technology is something you just write a check for and buy.They don’t understand the creativity element of technology. These are like ships passing in the night."—CNN Tech, June 10, 2011

The man and his muse.

"I wanted to come and just have chat this morning," says Steve Jobs, seated onstage for the closing keynote of Apple's World Wide Developer Conference back in 1997. Mr. Jobs, who officially stepped down from his post last night, had just begun his second tenure as Apple's CEO. The company's stock had been dipping below $20 a share for much of that year, and it was clear to Mr. Jobs that someone needed to light a fire under the developers who helped support the Apple ecosystem.

"We get to spend 45 minutes or so together and I want to talk about whatever you want to talk about," Mr. Jobs told the crowd. Coming from a legendary CEO, known for having things his way, it was a disarmingly humble and open stance. "I have opinions on most things," he said, drawing a laugh from the crowd. "So I figured if you want to just start asking some questions, we'll go to some good places." It's a turn of phrase that reminds one Mr. Jobs is in fact a Buddhist, raised in the apricot orchards of Silicon Valley.

But the first question was about OpenDoc, a piece of software Apple had just discontinued, and from there, Jobs transformed, becoming the confrontational yet charming executive whose reality distortion field drew standing ovations from developers and journalists alike. "I know some of  you spent a lot time working on something that we put a bullet in the head of. I apologize. I feel your pain. But Apple suffered for several years from lousy engineering management, I have to say it."

The crowd applauded this bout of honesty, and Mr. Jobs continued. "You look at the farm that's been created with all these different animals going in different directions and it doesn't add up. The total is less than the sum of the parts. We had to decide: what are the fundamental directions we're going in?"

With the gauntlet thrown, Mr. Jobs headed into deeper, metaphysical territory. "The hardest thing is, when you think about focusing, focusing is saying, yes, no, "he said, walking backwards as his argument changed direction, his hands splayed out wide. "Focusing is about saying no. Focusing is about saying no," he repeated, as scattered applause breaks out.

"You've got to say no, no no and when you say no you piss off people and they go talk to the San Jose Mercury and they write a shitty article about you. And it's really a pisser, because you want to be nice, you don't want to tell the San Jose Mercury, the person who is telling you this was just asked to leave, or this or that. So you take the lumps, and Apple's been taking their share of lumps for the last six months. In a very unfair way."

Jobs was not only reasserting himself, he was setting the stage for the way he would run the company for the next decade and half. He was articulating the essential vision, which he returned to again. "Focus is about saying no. And the result of that focus is going to be some really great products. Where the total is much greater than the sum of the parts."

Mr. Jobs saw that promise through, delivering products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad which revolutionized the music, mobile and PC industries. All focused on simplicity. All said no to many of the bells and whistles hyped by the competition. With Apple now trading places with Exxon as the most valuable company in the world, the turnaround Jobs dreamed of at this conference has exceeded perhaps even his expectations.

It's sad to see America's most famous and talented CEO step down because of illness, but he went out on his terms. He could have easily said yes to another year, and contributed to Apple in ways large and small. But he chose to say no. He chose to leave Apple in the hands of people who could focus and execute to the their full potential, ensuring that over the next decade, Apple will be more than the sum of its parts.