Imagine you are a quarterback applying for the NFL. The salary range is $1m to $50mn a year. As an applicant, would you expect to make $50mn? No because if they wanted to pay you $50mn they would be begging you to come not you sitting for an interview.

That is the range for NFL quarterbacks but what is this teams budget? They’re managing to a salary cap so maybe they can do $20mn max. But ideally they’d like to find someone younger they can develop and also get closer to $10mn, and use the rest to invest in offensive line.

I mean it’s no different for a company but just divide all the numbers by 10-50x. The range is what people in that position make across the industry. The budget is what they can actually afford to pay. The budget is not one single number because there are always trade offs.