[bicknergseng]

>I think what's bothering me here is that these guys are perpetuating the notion that, literally, hiring a "celebrity"/"rock star" engineer/designer ("10xer") is something that folks should be paying a huge premium for.

Bugs me as well, but probably not for the same reason. It makes me sad how many programmers and engineers who aren't the mythical "rockstars" get left behind in all this. Average programmers. People who haven't founded their own company or created a popular software library, but are still capable of doing the work of a hundred number crunching people by themselves with a keyboard. So much rhetoric gets thrown around about ninjas and the skills gap, yet the median salary in the industry hasn't kept up with inflation in the past 15 years. A lot of time and industry effort is being spent on finding or importing people rather than supporting the ones they have or just hiring people and teaching them how to be more effective.

[hollerith]

>the median salary in the industry hasn't kept up with inflation in the past 15 years

What are some of your reasons for believing that? Personal work experience?

[bicknergseng]

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/19/172373123/older-tech-workers-o... somewhat casually mentions the stagnation according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's remarkably difficult to find wages by year.