This is stupid model that mistakes brevity for insight. But for the sake of argument Let’s assume the function metaphor to be true. The value of the employee t

This is stupid model that mistakes brevity for insight. But for the sake of argument Let’s assume the function metaphor to be true. The value of the employee to the firm isn’t the value of the of f(x) at a given point in time, it’s the value under the curve for an expected time horizon, so given the f’(x) and f(0) and the time horizon it’s not clear that either is better. Apart from that it’s very unlikely that f(x) is linear. It’s very unlikely that f(x) will grow to infinity. More likely is that the improvement will top out somewhere and maybe you should think about higher derivatives.