[kyro]

This is a reality that most do not want to accept. Is it just? Probably not.

I've often viewed this as Thinkers vs. Workers. Society places a high value on Thinkers, those who make decisions, strategize, make connections, build relationships, etc. Those who fall in this camp are doctors, lawyers, consultants, CEOs, etc. The Workers -- programmers, engineers, designers -- are often fungible. They are in a competitive market of manual laborers that has driven down the price of labor to levels that, for many, increase the opportunity cost of learning the tech yourself. Over time, Thinkers accumulate social capital that can be leveraged to gain benefits, both related and unrelated to their profession -- e.g. a doctor being given preferential treatment by a restaurant host. Workers accumulate labor capital; they're more efficient at their work, can develop more creative solutions. But put a 50yr old coder up against a 50yr old lawyer/doctor/banker and the latter will be given more praise, more money, more influence 9 times out of 10.

Even Workers eventually outsource their labor once they're in a position to become a Thinker. Few successful startup CEOs and execs are actually coding themselves. Their roles shift to strategy, operations, so on and and so forth, for that's where they're valued and will be rewarded the most.

And getting a graduate degree is often the ticket to be considered a Thinker, whether MD, MBA, JD, PhD.

That's the game, whether you like it or not, and it certainly won't be changing anytime soon. If money is a priority, becoming a Thinker might be in your best interest.

[analog31]

>>>> Their roles shift to strategy, operations, so on and and so forth, for that's where they're valued and will be rewarded the most.

Those are the roles where you can't trust anybody to do them for you without fleecing you. Even MBA's are loath to fully entrust those roles to other MBA's. The top management of our company has an elaborate review process for strategy and operations, and no high level review process for coding.

[foobarqux]

My upvote wasn't enough: Your comment summarizes simple but important career and life insight that most people have to learn the hard way; I wish more people would read it.

[Roboprog]

There's certainly economic truth in this position. But putting doctors and CEOs in the same category seems a bit off to me. Certainly, CEOs and consultants aren't stupid, but it seems that there are other skills in play as well, some of which can be expressed in words with both positive and negative connotations. Being a "thinker" isn't sufficient to be a CEO.