I'm not implying that companies don't bring value by their nature. They absolutely do. I'm also not implying that I could generate this value on my own, though

I'm not implying that companies don't bring value by their nature. They absolutely do. I'm also not implying that I could generate this value on my own, though I have before. I'm just saying, if I have an employee and he makes me $1m a year, I'm going to pay him well - I'll pay that employee what is fair in the context of what value we enable him to generate for us. That usually means the employee is worth at least 50% of that in compensation, btw. This is why if you bring a deal to a company as a sales person commissions are around that number (50% of profit).