> they already have jobs and their companies will do whatever they can to keep them.

I truly wish I lived in the world you imagine. I've been in the job I'm leaving for 13 years, received top-tier performance reviews every year, constant improvement, very good software, technical lead of one of the most profitable teams in the entire (huge) company. Everyone who has ever worked with me directly has great things to say. Meanwhile the vice presidents of such-and-such that play musical chairs with their titles every 2 years do not care. I have made it very clear what they need to do to keep me (and it's not onerous, in fact it's mutually beneficial for everyone and completely in line with the CEO's vision), and they do not care. I'm not sitting in the right seat; I'm not already buddies with the right VP; so fuck me. I can go get fucked.

It honestly sounds like you either have no real-world experience or you've gotten extremely lucky with the company you found. If it's the latter, do whatever you can to stay there as long as it doesn't turn to shit (and it can, at any point).

This is not true, and just taking a dab on a fellow engineer looking for a job is not cool or funny. With that out of the way, most boring (insurance, e-shops, healthcare, logistic, etc...) don't care about keeping anyone(tech) around, so the "if you are good enough, companies will try to keep you" is a lie, at least in the US. Anyone can pickup their tech stack fairly quick. The technique I have seen some "boring" companies use, is to hire very junior folks , convince them they are making progress in their careers , promoting them to SDE1, 2, Senior SDE, Team Lead, etc... (and raising their compensation to a 3-5% each time, and making it a big deal) which means very little if your company doesn't have real infra. Many people settle for a familiar environment(sometimes the only they know) that pays them just enough. In big tech is a bit different(in my experience from Amazon, Msft and Google) , they do have "Dive & Save" money, to keep you from going to the competition.

His was a valid retort to an annoying gripe from highly entitled managers. I've worked with plenty of top level devs. In SVish companies with boatloads of money this may be true for the top 1% of devs (some startups seem to have this culture), but that's just a piece of the tech world.

The reality is that for a massive number of devs working for traditional businesses, there isn't all that much on the table. You can try to move up into the management caste and get big bumps, but you're only going to get incremental advancements.

I actually wonder if any companies have considered massive salaries to be a liability in litigation, because it could be pointed to as an example of unfair wages.

Anyway, you're getting a fancy management job, or some super elite dev job.

As counter, some of the smartest, hardworking people that I know have extremely low self-esteem and self-confidence issues. They do excellent work under horrible conditions and are not properly compensated for their work.

Similarly, I have worked at places that have had "good devs" who didn't have such image problems, that worked at places that did not understand (or appreciate) what it was that they had, and did nothing to keep them on the staff. "Whatever. It's hiring season anyway." After their departure, productivity suffered, and when points were reiterated (that were covered before the person left), the response was something along the lines of a timid, "Oh...I thought you were joking."

Your assumption is constructed around the idea that people will always do what is in their best interest, and be in a frame of mind to appreciate the "big picture" things. In my own experience, this is rarely the case. More often than not, it is a sort of miracle that even some very well-known places are able to stay in business.

I'm sure there are exceptions, of course. Some upper management really are very smart and "keyed in" to the value of specific employees output and are also in a position to do something about it. I would simply argue that those arrangements are significantly less common than you might be led to believe, and that such remedial, reactive measures are unsuccessful far more often than they are successful.

Just a thought!