Your answer is contradictory: managers are not in any way multipliers, but they must be paid more because pyramid?
Also, your cynical view completely breaks down for knowledge work; you can't simply stand over a room of programmers cracking a whip and expect anything to improve. Maybe you've experienced that, but that's not what skilled managers in productive tech companies are paid to do.
You are probably not aware but in Google and many other companies it is very normal and in fact common to have a manager earning less than an employee reporting to the manager. I have not experienced any kind of friction due to this. Why should it? It's only fair that someone who brings more value to the company should earn more.
Having said that, Google is not your typical company. I know managers in Google who push thousands of lines of code per week and are often more productive and more hand-on than the engineers that report to them. In such cases, it is only fair that they earn more than the engineers.
I agree with dasil003 that your cynical view breaks down in productive technology companies. Maybe that's what you have experiened but the places I have worked at had no resemblance with the court of Julius Caesar and the managers were definitely not mere email routers.
Comments
Your answer is contradictory: managers are not in any way multipliers, but they must be paid more because pyramid?
Also, your cynical view completely breaks down for knowledge work; you can't simply stand over a room of programmers cracking a whip and expect anything to improve. Maybe you've experienced that, but that's not what skilled managers in productive tech companies are paid to do.
Please, human beings are the same regardless where and when they they have been working.
It was the same in the court of Julius Caesar its the same in Google.
You are probably not aware but in Google and many other companies it is very normal and in fact common to have a manager earning less than an employee reporting to the manager. I have not experienced any kind of friction due to this. Why should it? It's only fair that someone who brings more value to the company should earn more.
Having said that, Google is not your typical company. I know managers in Google who push thousands of lines of code per week and are often more productive and more hand-on than the engineers that report to them. In such cases, it is only fair that they earn more than the engineers.
I agree with dasil003 that your cynical view breaks down in productive technology companies. Maybe that's what you have experiened but the places I have worked at had no resemblance with the court of Julius Caesar and the managers were definitely not mere email routers.