One of the reasons CEO pay exploded over the last few decades is that every company wants to pay “above market average,” which of course is impossible by defini

One of the reasons CEO pay exploded over the last few decades is that every company wants to pay “above market average,” which of course is impossible by definition. But they find out what the market average is, then beat it, thus raise the new market average, which the next company then has to go and beat. I’m sure something similar is going on for software engineers. To some degree, of course it is.