That's a pretty bold statement : The Goldman trader's NPV will be pretty solid in cash terms (given that Goldman's risk group actually does a decent job, and va

That's a pretty bold statement : The Goldman trader's NPV will be pretty solid in cash terms (given that Goldman's risk group actually does a decent job, and values things accurately). The NPV created by a Google engineer is more difficult to judge - depending on how far into the future it is, and what risk/reward is embedded in Google's stock valuation. I'm not arguing that either one is over or under-paid. Just that it's not apples-to-apples.