Comment by tomcam

Salary is an indirect and partially useful metric, but one could argue that your ability to self-promote matters more, at least in the USA. I worked at Microsoft and saw that some of the people who made fat stacks of cash, just happened to be at the right place in the right time, or promoted things that looked good, but we’re not good for the company itself.

I made great money running my own businesses, but the vast majority of the programming was by people I hired. I’m a decent talent, but that gave me the ability to hire better ones than me.