Comment by aeonik

Yea I get that.

But the context of the conversation is white collar crime, corruption, or unfair practices, and paying significantly above market rate.

Costco is a very egalitarian organization. They pay is flatter across the entire hierarchy. Lower rank people are paid more, higher ranked people are paid less. They are a super ethical organization, I'm a big fan (though they could do better at incentivizing innovation).

It's just not the same pattern as paying gigantic amounts of money to hoard up "CS grads" or lawyers.