Exactly. Not everyone in a company can be focused on directly getting money from the customers. IMO, it's not a problem if sales people get paid somewhat more t

Exactly. Not everyone in a company can be focused on directly getting money from the customers. IMO, it's not a problem if sales people get paid somewhat more than engineers. However, if the ratio of pay of a sales guy to an engineer gets distorted too much, no one will want to be engineer any more. If that was the case, technological advance will stagnate. Everyone will be fighting to get the biggest part of an ever decreasing pie, instead of actually creating value. See also http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2233736 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2233736