You can make a modest argument for that as it relates to Amazon retail. Mass retail is a hyper low margin business, and one in which the labor skill required is very low, which produces the low incomes: the employees are very easy to replace and the sales & profit per employee ratio is very low.
Bezos doesn't derive more than 1/4 of his wealth from the Amazon retail business however. His wealth primarily comes from AWS.
Your premise collapses badly in tech. The big flaw in your premise is the notion that the profit maximization equation involves slashing compensation to the lowest levels possible. In tech - and most high-skill segments - that is not the optimal equation.
The employees of Microsoft - to name one example of many - are among the best compensated workers in all of history, anywhere, at any time, doing anything. Many other tech giants with extreme profits mirror that outcome, including at such companies as Facebook and Google.
Microsoft is the second most profitable non-state corporation in history, and will soon surpass Apple as #1. They're presently generating $52 billion per year in operating profit and will double in size in the next seven or eight years. They learned a long time ago to share the wealth to attract the best talent, because it was more than worth it for the printing press profits they get in return.
More broadly speaking, tech employees in the US as a major sector are the best paid in world history, and they're the most coddled by a large margin. There is nothing remotely like it in any other segment of the global economy.
For 2019, approximately 1.4 million US software developers earning a median of ~$110,000 per year (and that's not total compensation, which leaves out a lot). Show me anything else comparable to that anywhere else on the planet.
Sure sounds like reciprocity derived from enormous profits to me. By maximizing profitability, they can pay their workers better; by paying their workers better, they can attract the best talent and maximize profitability.
> Your premise collapses badly in tech. The big flaw in your premise is the notion that the profit maximization equation involves slashing compensation to the lowest levels possible. In tech - and most high-skill segments - that is not the optimal equation.
Agreed.
> The employees of Microsoft - to name one example of many - are among the best compensated workers in all of history, anywhere, at any time, doing anything.
Doubtful. There are careers that in average pay much more. For example, an interventional cardiologist in the bay area makes $500,000 a year in average.
And just as there are software engineers that make more, there are cardiologists that make more.
> Sure sounds like reciprocity derived from enormous profits to me. By maximizing profitability, they can pay their workers better; by paying their workers better, they can attract the best talent and maximize profitability.
Reciprocity means the money you are getting is proportional to the value you created. While you can make money working at a highly profitable company, 100% reciprocity would mean that 100% of the profit and dividends are distributed according to merit. That is not the case.
That means that an NT kernel engineer should probably be making like $10,000,000 a year, for example.
