Why Coder Pay Isn't Proportional To Productivity

theodp writes "John D. Cook takes a stab at explaining why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity. The basic problem, Cook explains, is that extreme programmer productivity may not be obvious. A salesman who sells 10x as much as his peers will be noticed, and compensated accordingly. And if a bricklayer were 10x more productive than his peers, this would be obvious too (it doesn't happen). But the best programmers do not write 10x as many lines of code; nor do they work 10x as many hours. Programmers are most effective when they avoid writing code. An über-programmer, Cook explains, is likely to be someone who stares quietly into space and then says 'Hmm. I think I've seen something like this before.'"

Comments

Re:As always, make yourself known

[electrosoccertux]

You jokesters are completely missing the point. For the guys at the top, it was never about whether or not they're 200-400x as productive.
It's about luring talent to your company. The guy that has what the shareholders want already has gobs of money, and to get him to work 12 hour days 7 days a week you're going to have to make him feel like he's rapidly growing his nestegg, even though his nestegg is already $xx million.

Am growing tired of hearing all the greedy people fuss about someone making more money than them. So what-- grow up, life isn't fair. We're all still better off than pretty much the entire world.

And even if Henry Ford does end up with all your money, you're still driving a Ford instead of a horse and buggy.
God forbid someone be thankful this holiday season. Instead it's just more more more more. He has 400x more take some of his and give it to me!!!

Re:As always, make yourself known

[digsbo]

You're right, of course. But since we'll never be able to prove that letting the bad debt be liquidated and asset prices come back to natural (i.e. not easy-money inflated) levels would have worked, we'll have to listen to the Keynesians tell us how they saved us all from a fate worse than the inflationary depression they just caused, and watch them teach the next generation of public school victims the glories of printed money.

Absolutely

[SuperKendall]

Can you say you are "deciding" when your family is hungry or your children are sick and a job is the only way to get health care benefits without going broke?

Agreeing to take a job at a specified price is as I said the definition of how much you are worth (and of course in this sense worth is purely in monetary terms, since people have so many other facets valuable in other ways). If there are preconditions making you take the job like lack of savings and a family to feed they are simply making you re-calculate that figure to be more accurate for the choices you have made.

I don't think you understand that well enough, a persons "worth" is determined by all aspects of their lives. If you have a lifestyle that requires a certain level of income, is that really a factor of how much you are "worth" or instead how much you have chosen to spend? There is a distinct difference. You say that person is not deciding anything but is forced to take a job. I say they have spent a lifetime "deciding" what will happen to them through actions they have taken and choices they have made.

Also, I don't understand how anyone could argue there is one absolute inflexible number that represents a workers "worth", since even artisans working for themselves must build things the market is willing to buy, and in tough times customers will buy fewer things at lower prices. The notion that you are forced to take a job because of family obligations represents being paid less than you are "worth" doesn't make any sense, you are being paid what you are worth at that time for the market and economy in which you live. Not to mention that your "worth" obviously changes depending on the work you are doing, if a former banker is working at McDonalds should he be making bankers wages?