I realized that some level of not getting 100% of the value i generate is worth it to have someone else deal with all that stuff.
I'm not saying whether or not engineers are underpaid for the value they create but it's worth something > 0
I've been thinking of going the same route, and I'm confident I can handle the paperwork and deliver, but it's the finding the clients part that worries me the most. Not sure if the problems I see are widespread enough to warrant founding a business and going through all that...
If there were only a handful of qualified engineers available on the market, then they'd get paid CEO-like salaries due to the value they provide and being in high demand. But because there is a whole market of qualified engineers they get paid far less.
It's pretty basic economics and doesn't have much to do with stock buybacks/dividends/etc... Regardless of the value of an individual position, wages will be lower or higher depending on the supply of an occupation. In the big picture engineers are very replaceable at market price compared to executives so their wages are reflective of that.
This would be counter-intuitive, because low demand results in high salary, regardless of supply.
Right, CEO salaries skyrocket, not necessarily because of the value they create, but because they can get the board and stockholders to back them more than the people actually creating value in a company.
They can do this in the form of stock buybacks, dividends, etc.
The standard software engineer does not have the power to "bribe" the stockholders in that way.