One of the best lessons that I've been taught in my life is to never overestimate people's rationality and cognitive coherence. The same works for organizations

One of the best lessons that I've been taught in my life is to never overestimate people's rationality and cognitive coherence. The same works for organizations. Companies not matching significative individual value with significative salary is not necessarily part of a meaningful strategy on their side. They might just do it because that's how slow the job market has moved for X years before the boom of IT, but there's no guarantee that it makes the slightest sense. I've worked in so many orgs that ended up on the verge of crashing just because they couldn't hire/retain talent. This problem coexisted with their attempt of fixing it by working with consulting companies, which charged 10x what an employee/contractor would've charged. Why not hire someone able to match their expectations you ask? "It costs too much money/time/attention" has always been the answer. In the meantime, consulting shops needed constant monitoring because of their usual tendency to overpromise and underdeliver. IMHO the most successful companies happen to be the ones which defy common salary negotiation/adjustment practices, and that's not a coincidence. They just think about it and see that paying skilled people a decent amount of money makes sense. And then they can focus on their product/services without getting lost in turnover hell. Side note: high salary means that an employee costs too much to get him to work on minor stuff. Sometimes you outgrow a team, and if the company doesn't have enough high level problems to throw at you, and they don't care too much about it, then you might peacefully negotiate a goodbye agreement.