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Comment by rjprins | Hacker News Reader

A CEO does not deliver 100x more value than entry level employees. A CEO is in a position of power, which enables her to claim such a wage.

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No way. A CEO is held responsible for the decisions of EVERYONE under him/her by the board. A lousy programmer will cost the company a lot less than a lousy CEO.

The CEO is essentially the face of the company when things happen (good or bad) and has huge responsibilities. Managing a company is easy from the armchair.

That's a better way to see it. It's hard to see good management and its effects, but good management really does make a major difference. But it is so hard to see, that people sometimes don't even realize they need it. But to see the ability management has to change the outcome, look at bad management: they can totally destroy a company, no matter how good the engineers are. That people can see.

A CEO of a big company like Apple or Microsoft delivers way more than 100x value of entry level eployees. A 10% improvement at the CEO position would be hugely valuable.

In theory at least, wage should reflect responsibility and liability within the company. If you go over those of the CEO, you see why they make so much more money. They should be held accountable for the wealth of the entire company.

As far as lawyers are concerned, their wages just reflect the fact that they (should) have been trained as A-list negotiators, and it is common practice for lawyers to have a fee based on a percentage of the deal they negotiated.

There is a corollary for programmers for the above: start-ups. Though not trained negotiators, skill and work ethic can get you far enough. And it is common practice to receive a percentage of the reward.

The grass always looks greener on the other side.

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