In companies that are generating significant revenue it's pretty easy to tell if a change is profitable or not, and that you could make X more changes worth Y w

In companies that are generating significant revenue it's pretty easy to tell if a change is profitable or not, and that you could make X more changes worth Y with Z more developers - not even trying to put a price on individual developers, just a typical developer whom may not even need to be a diamond-in-the-rough, rock star, ninja, volcano-surfing lion tamer. In many business models it's pretty easy to see the value added by a new, average developer at this firm may be way more than it is at other firms in the hiring market, and are irrationally failing to make gains from trade and inefficiently allocating the labor market by refusing to capture the quantity of labor supplied at a higher price point, before of (I think) cultural reasons.