Programmers have no power over the people who set pay rates while CEOs have a great deal of power. Yup, I think that around about covers it. I would have phras

Programmers have no power over the people who set pay rates while CEOs have a great deal of power. Yup, I think that around about covers it. I would have phrased it a little differently though. Basically, in just about any endeavour, you only get the really big reward if you sell your product directly to the people that use your product. So, music artists sell directly to the people that listen to the music (well, they earn a percentage share of direct sales). Startup founders also sell their products directly to the end user. But as soon as you become an employee, earning a salary, you aren't selling directly to the end user, you are selling your skills to your company, which then produces a product that is used by the end user. Or worse still, you are selling your skills to a company that produces a tool that is sold to another company that is finally used to do something deemed useful by the end user. The longer that chain is, the less likely you are to get paid what you are worth if you are above average. Why? Because the entity that is buying your product doesn't actually care about the product, so if you have made it three times better than it would have been without you, don't care - just as long as it meets the minimum specification necessary to be able to sell it to the next person in the chain. On the other hand, if you are selling directly to the end user, they certainly appreciate the product that goes above and beyond minimum spec - insert Apple/Ferrari story here... I can think of only one special case exception to this rule, and that is sports stars - and they are a special case because they are the only market where you actually have to beat the competition to be considered as performing. That means that there is a massive advantage in having someone on your team's payroll that is just slightly better than the other guy - you only have to be slightly better to win, and winner takes all.