The thing I hate is how stingy companies are with salaries. Pay a hard working engineer who has immense institutional knowledge that'll take years to replace $

The thing I hate is how stingy companies are with salaries. Pay a hard working engineer who has immense institutional knowledge that'll take years to replace $15k more per year? No way! Pay a million dollars for a fancy automated video conference room that will barely ever get used? Sure! Guess which one of these things contributes more to your company's success? How much would you pay the perfect candidate? Someone who knows all the tools you're using, knows the problem space, knows your customers, someone who has even gotten their hands dirty in the code fixing bugs and implementing features? Plus, they're a known quantity because you've worked with them before. What would you pay this perfect candidate? A ton, right? Guess what? You already have this candidate. It's the person already at your company. Are they making "perfect candidate" money? If not, why not?