Statistically speaking, you can draw the conclusion that your salary is substantially lower than typical of people who responded to this poll. You can't draw any conclusion about your salary in relation to the overall market, because the poll respondents are not randomly distributed among the population of the overall market and you have no information about the demographics of who chose to respond.
But if you drop the strict statistical sense and just look at the results with common-sense realism, yes you can figure that the poll generally reflects the broad reality and aiming for the middle of the poll range would be reasonable to request.
The people shooting down the first line of thinking are being pedantic about statistical rigor and the meaning of a conclusion. The poll is not statistically reliable because the sampling is not truly random, and it's not at all useful for making fine-grained distinctions between $120k and $125k. They are right, but you can ignore them and apply common sense for broad realistic purposes. The median salary in Silicon Valley is clearly not $40k.
But if you drop the strict statistical sense and just look at the results with common-sense realism, yes you can figure that the poll generally reflects the broad reality and aiming for the middle of the poll range would be reasonable to request.
The people shooting down the first line of thinking are being pedantic about statistical rigor and the meaning of a conclusion. The poll is not statistically reliable because the sampling is not truly random, and it's not at all useful for making fine-grained distinctions between $120k and $125k. They are right, but you can ignore them and apply common sense for broad realistic purposes. The median salary in Silicon Valley is clearly not $40k.