His was a valid retort to an annoying gripe from highly entitled managers. I've worked with plenty of top level devs. In SVish companies with boatloads of money

His was a valid retort to an annoying gripe from highly entitled managers. I've worked with plenty of top level devs. In SVish companies with boatloads of money this may be true for the top 1% of devs (some startups seem to have this culture), but that's just a piece of the tech world. The reality is that for a massive number of devs working for traditional businesses, there isn't all that much on the table. You can try to move up into the management caste and get big bumps, but you're only going to get incremental advancements. I actually wonder if any companies have considered massive salaries to be a liability in litigation, because it could be pointed to as an example of unfair wages. Anyway, you're getting a fancy management job, or some super elite dev job.