I always thought programmers were more prestige- or interest-oriented than money-oriented. This would help explain why pay is not as proportional as in other in

I always thought programmers were more prestige- or interest-oriented than money-oriented. This would help explain why pay is not as proportional as in other industries. J. Random programmer who works at Do-No-Evil Geek-owned Company works on software that millions of normal people will use, but gets paid 40k, is much better off than J. Random programmer who works for Enterprise Software Factory who gets paid 40k and has to wear a tie and work in a cubicle on software 20 people may really give a crap about. You will see the same skewed numbers at work in the video games industry, where employers know they can pay you barely anything for the right to wear whatever you want to work and work on something cool that people care about.