[nbuggia]

I think the gap is not how much value the hacker generates, it is how much value they get from the corporation.

If you are independent, than you loose out on all the value the corporation provides above & beyond your salary. Things like: - Taxes on revenue. The corporation pays state/federal taxes on the income you help generate. You would have to pay this on your own, and it can be expensive. - Limited legal liability. They have lawyers and deep pockets to dissuade lawsuits, and fight them if necessary. Most corporations protect individual employees. You would have to pay for this on your own. - Sales force. Demand generation is very expensive - Healthcare. Yeah, very expensive. - Office space. - Training, travel, budgets. - Hardware, etc.

Basically, take everything captured under "General administrative expenses" and divide that by the number of employees in the company. This is the amount of value each hacker gets above & beyond their pay.

This gap isn't insurmountable, and you probably don't need all the services, but it explains much of the 'barrier to entry' for hackers going rouge.