When I was first started out in programming, someone gave me the advice "never work at a company where you're a cost, always work at a company where your output

When I was first started out in programming, someone gave me the advice "never work at a company where you're a cost, always work at a company where your output is [directly tied to] the profit." It seemed like a truism, and was somewhat memorable. To date, the only really bad jobs I've had in programming/engineering/what have you were ones where my work output was seen as a cost and not as a product or service, so anecdotally it's worked out.