[Domenic_S]

No, they're right but I can see how you interpreted it. They said salary is "your worth to the company" -- meaning, the amount of money they're willing to part with to have you, or to keep you from working elsewhere (your "worth" to them).

I think you took it to mean actual calculated dollar-value driven-by-the-eng worth. Even thinking about that, your example is wrong because it ignores expected value (EV) of a project which takes into account risk. For example, if your theoretical project has a 10% chance of generating $5mm/yr and a 90% of completely failing, the EV of the project is $500k/yr - so it's totally worth it to pay an eng $100k/yr to work on it, even if it fails.

[bonoboTP]

No they mean that bullshitters, asslickers, and manipulative but charismatic and confident politics players often get more recognition and salary than the objectively skillful and technically competent, value delivering people.

Sure you can redefine "worth" to include scheming and taking undue credit and deflecting blame, but it's a stretch.

[RobertKerans]

To keep things in track in the spirit of the originating comment, do those people not fit exactly what the commenter was talking about? That they may be average/below average at many things, but they have spent a great deal of time to become well above average at, say, understanding how to manipulate people (which I stress may not be a conscious decision to be a bad person), rather than having, say, expert knowledge of automobile mechanics? I mean it's a shitty thing, but it's not really about "worth" per se, it's about skill, and that skill doesn't have to be ethically positive/neutral

[bonoboTP]

That becomes a tautology. It's well possible that a toxic manipulative person enters a company, destroys a lot of value production and efficiency by pitting people against one another, taking credit for apparent wins and pushes losses to others and into the future and still makes it quite high in promotions. Perhaps at some point they get booted, but they can do a lot of damage, perhaps make skilled people leave rather than enter an uncertain fight when they have high job market value, leaving the more desperate to stay who don't dare to stir things up. Meanwhile others don't feel responsible for helping a cold megacorp so they just want to get out of this with the best CV and social standing and a good reference.

You must interpret "worth" in a tautological manner if you consider the toxic persons behavior valuable. It's an organizational pathology. Just because it happens doesn't mean it's good or teaches us we need to re-evaluate what we consider value.

Cancer can displace useful cells and kill the organism. It doesn't mean that "well in the end it was for the better anyway since cancer cells are more worthy since they ended up winning". That's twisted logic. Also note that megacorp won't die so easily and the effect of one such person may not show up visibly until after they've voluntarily left for a better job to another place to repeat the cycle.

[RobertKerans]

You are making a couple of assumptions here:

1. that someone with what would be considered a morally/ethically negative skill would inevitably damage an organisation, or that an organisation would not want someone with that particular skill.

2. that the cancer analogy is at all useful. A company or org is not a body (it is a legal entity with a specific purpose), and a person with what I've called morally negative skills is not a cancer cell (they are a thinking person with actual goals that may align and actual skills that may be required).

I can pull out innumerable examples from politics or business here. Take the current US incumbent. Or, as I'm from the UK, the current prime minister, or his home secretary. Of course, to an observer who feels they are a cancer (I do!) they are what you describe. And they will always force other people out who would seem to have [call them] positive skills that would make them better suited [from my viewpoint], sure. But none of that means they aren't skilled, or that they do not have (fairly obvious, as I think about it) "worth"