[hiq]

This article seems to put a lot of people into its "big salaries", from CEOs to fresh graduate.

I'd argue that, past the million dollars mark, it's hard to claim that n > 0 other people could do the same job for cheaper. Companies don't end up paying these amounts for employees they consider fungible. Their jobs are also more likely to be somewhat unique, somewhat shaped by themselves to a certain extent, such that the company marketing is unlikely to convince them anyway.

More generally and even for employees paid less than that, the compensation and especially its constant part (salary) is the one thing we can trust when we sign. The company and its culture might change, my manager with whom I've had a good relationship might leave, but it's still unlikely they'd decide to reduce my salary (maybe it'd be impossible to come back from when it comes to recruiting new hires, reputation-wise?). There are also many companies that are just not known enough, or have team-dependent cultures, such that when you start, you don't know how it's going to be. The compensation is also the one thing you take with you when you start a new job, as a baseline for negotiations. Good luck saying that your previous job had meals or massages on-site, so your new job should figure out a way to accommodate that for you.

I think that's a big part of this one-axis marketing, how concrete the compensation is in comparison with most other aspects of a job.