[chinchilla2020]

I think the analogy is a good one but needs to be tweaked a bit.

"Rockstars" make tens/hundreds of millions or even billions. A good software engineer can make as much as a doctor (in the US) or accountant. You don't have to be a rockstar to be a 400k/year accountant.

The pay in tech has never been high enough to justify the sort of extreme talent competition in sports and hollywood. Even some of the greatest software engineers (e.g. Guido Van Rossum) are paid pretty modestly in the low seven figure range.

Real world Rockstars like Taylor Swift live a glamorous lifestyle, travel the world, and tend to work short, 2-3 hour gigs. Nobody with a rockstar personality is going to sit in a flourescently-lit office building staring at screen for 8 hours a day. No matter how many ping pong tables and free kombucha kegs there are, it is a very dull environment and does not attract the sort of ambition that rockstars have.

[sublinear]

> Nobody with a rockstar personality is going to sit in a flourescently-lit office building staring at screen for 8 hours a day. ... it is a very dull environment and does not attract the sort of ambition that rockstars have.

Maybe I'm just old, but when I think of a rockstar I think of a lead singer or guitarist that has spent most of their life practicing their craft and loves it so much that when we see them perform it's just a taste of what's inside of their head and heart.

[MichaelZuo]

There's at least several tens of thousands in 'tech' worldwide taking home mid 7 figures to 8 figure salaries USD or USD equivalent, and not including those in the C-suite either.

They are just rarely mentioned on HN because there's already enough tech billionaires to exhaust the patience and attention span of most readers seeking out that kind of content.

[pillefitz]

That sounds absolutely unbelievable to me. Any sources on that? Or even single examples

[MichaelZuo]

> Or even single examples

Most, if not all, Google fellows? Just randomly pick one.