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Comment by heavenlyblue | Hacker News Reader

> "I work for the highest bidder"

Uhm, I find people like these are actually the easiest to keep. They know their price and define it. You know what to expect.

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There is a difference between (A) a skilled expert who takes pride in their craft, and understandably goes with whichever employer appreciates their skills and compensates accordingly, vs (B) a middle-of-the-pack journeyman who just DGAF about their work and treats all jobs as equally disposable and replaceable (these are also the types of people who are likely to try out /r/overemployed, cuz why not).

We may all pretend to be more like type (A) employees, but in reality not everyone can be above average and there's a lot of (B) out there. As an employer, it makes total sense to invest in and pay more for (A)'s, but you're throwing money away to try and woo (B)'s or pretending like enough money will buy you better engagement or more motivation from them.

This is well said and sums up my experience

> As an employer, it makes total sense to invest in and pay more for (A)'s, but you're throwing money away to try and woo (B)'s

By that same logic most managers also fall into B just like ICs. So that statement is incorrect - Bs are perfect material for empire building and As are usually not

You can’t have all A’s. I’d rather have B’s than a hypothetical C who is just trying to hold down a job and not get fired, or a D who DGAF but isn’t middle of the pack and takes your lower-paying job because it’s the best they could do (sure, the B is basically the same, but at least there is some theoretically higher quality on average).

You simply won’t get (A) in some industries. People love making things like games, not boring CRUD apps driven by people outside of development who also resemble (B).

These views are always short-sighted like that.

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