One I would be very surprised if his consultancy actually pays an average salary of $500k for developers.
Also $500k is more than 1 in 300 developers make. Every billion dollar company in the world was built with people less talented than the ones your demanding. I would like to see what specific tasks a 1 in 300 developer can accomplish this his 1 in 10 or 50 peer cannot.
Look at Netflix for good examples of a $500k engineer.
What did Chaos Monkey require that a 1 in 10 peer could not have done? Technically? Maybe it wouldn't have gone smoothly, or maybe it wouldn't have been as fast, but I am fairly certain most decent developers (with sufficient sysadmin chops) could have built chaos monkey. But the reason that engineer is worth $500k is because of the unique value it added. Their job wasn't to build Chaos Monkey, it was to make Netflix operations more robust. They identified that they didn't know how their software would behave during infrastructure failure and found a way to better understand failure proactively.
1 in 10 engineers add value by writing code. 1 in 50 engineers build value by solving problems. 1 in 300 engineers add value by identifying and solving problems.
1 in 10 engineers are real smart guys who identify and solve problems all the time. What about the 1 in 300 is different? Is it technical knowledge? Is it the ability to sell his ideas to upper management?
Google would pay $10 million for a lawyer that would win a case against Microsoft for IP. Similarly defining a 1 in 300 developer as one that makes great contributions is problematic. You're no longer paying for the developer but for the outcome. And people are willing to pay a lot more for outcomes than people.
Also $500k is more than 1 in 300 developers make. Every billion dollar company in the world was built with people less talented than the ones your demanding. I would like to see what specific tasks a 1 in 300 developer can accomplish this his 1 in 10 or 50 peer cannot.