In theory this sounds like a decent way to rebuke this point, however there are two important things to consider:
1. Your average software developer employee just simply doesn’t have that much control over their own salary. I believe I may have greater than average control over my own salary, and that doesn’t even compare to the kind of control that high level executives of a company have over their own salaries. Because of this, developers lack the conflict of interest that a CEO has.
2. Though developers may be “overpaid,” especially in the more extreme ends, and other employees may be underpaid, the difference between developers and CEOs is not even in the same wheelhouse. It’s not just a mere discrepancy that can be explained with market rates alone. Data I’ve heard repeated paints a picture that shows CEOs pulling far away of basically everybody, even considering other executive wages being quite high too:
> In 2020, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 351-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 307-to-1 in 2019 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989.
I don’t think the question is whether the CEO is 351 times more important than the average employee below them. I think the question is, how is it even possible that it’s worth it, in terms of outcomes, to have a CEO make this much more than the average employee? Do you actually think that, if accountability were at least as tied to salary as it was for other employees, it would have been possible for things to get this disparate?
Even if it was actually leading to better outcomes for companies, this kind of income inequality is definitely leading to worse outcomes for society.
> Even if it was actually leading to better outcomes for companies, this kind of income inequality is definitely leading to worse outcomes for society.
No disagreement here. I think CEOs should be paid no more than 10 times their lowest paid employee, and that should be made enforceable by law.
Using 150k as a random number[1], Baker is overpaid by roughly a factor of two based on my "ideal" scheme. But I have the sneaking suspicion that HN would gripe even if she took a 50% pay cut.
1. Your average software developer employee just simply doesn’t have that much control over their own salary. I believe I may have greater than average control over my own salary, and that doesn’t even compare to the kind of control that high level executives of a company have over their own salaries. Because of this, developers lack the conflict of interest that a CEO has.
2. Though developers may be “overpaid,” especially in the more extreme ends, and other employees may be underpaid, the difference between developers and CEOs is not even in the same wheelhouse. It’s not just a mere discrepancy that can be explained with market rates alone. Data I’ve heard repeated paints a picture that shows CEOs pulling far away of basically everybody, even considering other executive wages being quite high too:
> In 2020, the ratio of CEO-to-typical-worker compensation was 351-to-1 under the realized measure of CEO pay; that is up from 307-to-1 in 2019 and a big increase from 21-to-1 in 1965 and 61-to-1 in 1989.
(Source: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2020/)
I don’t think the question is whether the CEO is 351 times more important than the average employee below them. I think the question is, how is it even possible that it’s worth it, in terms of outcomes, to have a CEO make this much more than the average employee? Do you actually think that, if accountability were at least as tied to salary as it was for other employees, it would have been possible for things to get this disparate?
Even if it was actually leading to better outcomes for companies, this kind of income inequality is definitely leading to worse outcomes for society.