"Yeah, he was quite the cost center at $90k a year."

This is one of the keys to getting paid well and being valued appropriately by a company: position yourself as a profit center, not as a cost center. People who're viewed as cost centers are always facing the question "How can I get your job done with the least cost?", whereas people who're viewed as profit centers have obvious apparent value.

It's a broken system, and broken systems are opportunities for those who figure out how to benefit from them.