You forgot the middleground where there are thousands of laid off people who can do your exact job and undercut you etc.
These founders hire/fire through hundreds of us, they don't give a shit.
If you say 1 thing they don't like they go to the next.
How many of those people have experience with augmented reality? Probably not that many.
$35k seems pretty low for this job. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.
That's not the middle ground. That's the other extreme, where people are desperate for work so they will say they can do anything in order to get work.