My point is that dev pay being off a few percent since 2020 because of high inflation does not by itself decide the question of whether they're overpaid or not.

Patrick Mahomes doesn't get a pay raise adjustment every year for inflation. That doesn't mean his $500m football contract makes him underpaid.

The grandparent comment reads as if devs are underpaid because their pay isn't fully keeping up with some unusual inflation since 2020.

Some would say CEOs are paid to increase corporate profits, thus their value is their ability to raise corporate profits.

However, the Kalecki-Levy profit equation (an accounting identity which originated in 1908 and is still accepted as true) makes clear that in aggregate, corporate profits == government deficit.

Thus the single largest driver of corporate profits is not CEO activity, but government fiscal policy.

So CEOs are paid based on what the government does.

Are you pricing in value, or pricing in a specific amount of dollars? Because if you're actually pricing in value, then even though the value stays constant, the dollar amount of the value goes up with inflation.

I agree with your point that regular employees should be expected to get more raises than CEOs, because regular employees can improve more. This doesn't really relate to inflation though, except to the extent they are both factors that lead to raises.

Asking too much? “Waaah! It is really hard to find good developers” is a stuck record on loop since 2016 at least