[firstOrder]

ExxonMobil brought in $469 billion in revenue last year, on which they made $44 billion in profit. It's not a big gamble for them at all if some programmer who gets $100k, $150k or whatever does not work out.

Of course, some bootstrapped company, or some company which had minimal angel funding or the like is taking more of a gamble, but everything is a gamble when you have no product/market fit and only 18 months or less worth of cash in the bank.

[jshen]

Exxon is in the top ten for revenue, that is not a good example on your part. also, $100k is not a large salary in my book. Doubling it is the sort of gamble I'm talking about.