Baseball statistics have this concept WAR (Wins Above Replacement), basically if by putting in this player, how much more wins did they bring in than some other player. This is what's really big in salary, but is tied together with another variable, how much money is that win worth?
If I am hiring sandwhich makers and pay them $10 an hour, which brings in $15 an hour of revenue, then some other sandwhich maker is twice as good at making sandwhiches, how much do I pay them? Probably not $20 an hour, since them being faster might still only net $15 of revenue an hour. That increase in revenue is what drives salary. The downside to a bad sandwhich maker is very small, its at most a few messed up sandwhiches.
Tom Cruise makes 1000x another actor for the same movie because the fact that Tom Cruise is in the movie brings in some large multiple of revenue, and Tom Cruise takes a cut of that increase. Sports work in the same way. Software, Finance, and to a point Sales are the "normal" jobs out there that work in a similar way because its largely non-fungible. An amazing trader or dev might make the firm 100x revenue than an average trader. A bad dev or trader brings in Negative value as they make things worse.
This is why teachers don't make more money, a better teacher does not bring in 10x revenue to a district, a worse teacher doesn't create 10x losses. Even though teachers have a large societal effect, there is no direct revenue analysis you can do to show what the replacement value is.
I would argue this is exactly what a worse teacher does. They can discourage/mislead/destroy 100s or 1000s of students over their career which can have dramatic effects for a society.
I agree with you. But I think the problem is that our society doesn't really know what that is until many years after the fact and its really hard to measure. Personally I would absolutely support a policy where teachers who have better test scores (by some metric. Same district? same city? same state? raw numbers?) get more money. A company can pretty easily see X brought in more than Y revenue. Tough for a school.
> Software, Finance, and to a point Sales are the "normal" jobs out there that work in a similar way because its largely non-fungible. An amazing trader or dev might make the firm 100x revenue than an average trader. A bad dev or trader brings in Negative value as they make things worse.
The hard part, and what a lot of engineers should focus on, is putting a dollar figure on that.
> a better teacher does not bring in 10x revenue to a district, a worse teacher doesn't create 10x losses. Even though teachers have a large societal effect, there is no direct revenue analysis you can do to show what the replacement value is.
To me that's an incredible opportunity for companies in the education sector to bring an alternative business model where compensation is based on track record. I'm certain a lot of parents would be very interested to hire tutors that have a good track record of their students going to top 10 schools for example.
I probably don't have any sources better than an average google would get. I am not super knowledgable about baseball, I have just come across that statistic and thought it was interesting which keeps it knocking around. https://thebaseballguide.com/war-in-baseball/ was a pretty good overview of it for me though.
If I am hiring sandwhich makers and pay them $10 an hour, which brings in $15 an hour of revenue, then some other sandwhich maker is twice as good at making sandwhiches, how much do I pay them? Probably not $20 an hour, since them being faster might still only net $15 of revenue an hour. That increase in revenue is what drives salary. The downside to a bad sandwhich maker is very small, its at most a few messed up sandwhiches.
Tom Cruise makes 1000x another actor for the same movie because the fact that Tom Cruise is in the movie brings in some large multiple of revenue, and Tom Cruise takes a cut of that increase. Sports work in the same way. Software, Finance, and to a point Sales are the "normal" jobs out there that work in a similar way because its largely non-fungible. An amazing trader or dev might make the firm 100x revenue than an average trader. A bad dev or trader brings in Negative value as they make things worse.
This is why teachers don't make more money, a better teacher does not bring in 10x revenue to a district, a worse teacher doesn't create 10x losses. Even though teachers have a large societal effect, there is no direct revenue analysis you can do to show what the replacement value is.