#1 itself is a stretch. A great developer may bring more value to the firm than they are paid, but that does not necessarily mean that they are worth much more

#1 itself is a stretch. A great developer may bring more value to the firm than they are paid, but that does not necessarily mean that they are worth much more when considered outside the firm. Let's take a brilliant kernel hacker as an example. His value is great to a company which specializes in low latency hardware, but may not be so much in a small web startup (in fact, may be less valuable than a mediocre web specialist). I think that a lot of people confuse "value to the firm" with "intrinsic value"