alt Hacker News> For highly paid employees (high impact, high competence, whatever the reason), reducing inequality goes against their direct financial interests. Inequality gets reduced by dragging their compensation down, not increasing everyone else's.
Speaking as someone who's been a super high performer in some roles, and a terrible performer in others, I definitely want to reduce inequality.
Like, it's entirely unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others. If you want to pay someone outside of band, give them a different title.
If someone performs unexpectedly well, give them a bonus/promotion etc.
It's deeply sad (but unsurprising) that so many people can only focus on their particular benefit (especially when the vast majority of that benefit is context dependent).
Like, if you hired John Carmack or Fabrice Bellard and just told them to take tickets, they'd probably be an average performer at best. If you told them never to take initiative, they'd perform badly. So lots of performance is dependent on context, there are very few "good" employees in a vacuum.
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>Speaking as someone who's been a super high performer in some roles, and a terrible performer in others, I definitely want to reduce inequality. Like, it's entirely unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others.
Then give your money to people who don't negotiate as well. In practice, you don't: your revealed preference speaks louder than your stated preference does.
> it's unfair that I (because I negotiate well) get better options than others
No its not. This is a skill that is useful when exchanging value with other entities (the basis of the economy). You're being compensated for having that skill.
Would you hire a salesperson or head of procurement or media buyer with bad negotiation skills? How about a developer who can't properly negotiate with teams demanding their time to properly allocate themselves where needed?