Also: if you're being paid $100k and, in turn, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars of value for your company, you're undervalued and underpaid.
The software industry is one of the few industries where a single person can create mountains of value all by themselves. Comparing software engineer salaries to janitor salaries makes no sense as janitors aren't creating multiples of their salary in value for their employer.
The only problem with this example is not every software engineer has the ability to be an entrepreneur. Sure, they can create monumental value for their employers, but there are some people that just can't be founders or cofounders or anything more simply because of how they are. I know quite a few people like this. At the end of the day, it takes a variety of personality traits, skills, brains, and a slew of other things to create a well rounded individual who can maximize value. Outside of this, no matter how much value you're adding to your employer, how can you honestly say you're worth more.
I've been thinking about this, and trying to come up with a solution.
The best solution I can come up with is options/stock and salary... That way creating more value DOES help them get more income, subject to the vagaries of the stock market.
Unfortunately, as wonderful as it would be for everyone to receive their exact value in return as a percentage, that's HARD... It's hard to quantify and it's hard to justify.
The software industry is one of the few industries where a single person can create mountains of value all by themselves. Comparing software engineer salaries to janitor salaries makes no sense as janitors aren't creating multiples of their salary in value for their employer.