Re:November 2026 Claude Fable 5.2 Scores 65 on Artificial An...
by roncesvalles on Tuesday November 10, 2026 @05:49AM
(#50438498)
>people generally aren't willing to pay double the salary for 15% better work
Actually, companies are already willing to pay double for 15% better work - the proof is in what SWE salaries in America have currently become.
Companies are pretty much paying at the frontier of marginal improvement (not returns, which again, are hockey-stick) - i.e. it's not like paying 800k will reliably hire someone 15% better than the 400k that they're currently paying.
At this point, the limiting factor is their reach-out and interviewing processes, and the ability of the brand name to attract talent (OpenAI can actually get better talent by paying 800k; Microsoft would not because they're still Microsoft and some people would simply never respond to a Microsoft recruiter even if they lead with "this role pays 800k").
The reason in workplaces people don't hire somebody else at a fraction of the cost isn't because American workers are 15% smarter than non-Americans. It was just very difficult to have exactly 1 remote worker on a team, language barrier, international laws, etc.
In my experience people generally aren't willing to pay double the salary for 15% better work. They will however pay market for domains where nobody else is qualified.