Isn't the obvious, uncomfortable answer, that management wants to maximize profitability? It's almost the definition of their job to find these 100x productivity programmers and pay them the 1x salary. Also, note that when you have an entire team of 100x programmers, and you are only paying them 2x or 3x the salary of the 1x programmer, the manager has succeeded well in their goal - not only has the pay-me-more-for-my-skill argument disappeared (they are all the same 100x skill level) but you are extracting the massive amount of excess productivity into profitability. bottom line is that if you really are a 100x programmer, it is difficult to fully capitalize on that skill