> "With programming there is no cap. Rather than paying a particularly good programmer 10x as much, you can just hire 10 mediocre programmers, and they will probably get more done. So smallish differences in competence never translate into very large differences in pay or training."

That doesn't sound accurate to me. How can 10 mediocre programmers do the work of 1 spectacular programmer? I'm guessing this only applies when we're talking about mundane stuff. Smallish differences in competence translates into large differences in pay/training at the very top of the food chain.

To quote pg:

"This is why so many of the best programmers are libertarians. In our world, you sink or swim, and there are no excuses. When those far removed from the creation of wealth-- undergraduates, reporters, politicians-- hear that the richest 5% of the people have half the total wealth, they tend to think injustice! An experienced programmer would be more likely to think is that all? The top 5% of programmers probably write 99% of the good software." - http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html