[knipster]

The author suggest that star athletes are paid for their exceptional athletic ability.

Star athletes are paid for their ability to fill a stadium and or sell advertising/media rights. Part of their value is their celebrity and name/likeness. They are more equivocal to entertainers in this context. Of course, ability matters, because winning teams are celebrated!

Software developers do not bring this value to their organizations.

[djmips]

Not really true, with few exceptions you have to deliver on the field of play as a star athlete to maintain a high salary. The marketing creates some variance within the category but the top paid athletes are the top performing athletes otherwise why would they even retire?

[knowtheworld]

I would argue that making efficient and reliable software products is a very crucial factor for a software company to bring more revenue. It’s just not as straightforward to measure this.