It's funny you mention that. My first thought was, "wow, that's a lot of money." But then I thought, "but how much is it really?" I actually have no idea how much it should cost for them to do what they were trying to do though I suspect it is probably a fraction of that $150MM.

For a more concrete perspective, if you assume that a good developer costs about $150,000/year, then this is one hundred years of development time for a team of 10 good developers, which is quite a lot.

I don't know just what this thing was supposed to do, so I don't know what the scope is.

To 10 developers add a few dozens of Business Analysts and Managers. Outsource some work to India. Oracle licenses and IBM fees. That will easily get you over 100M.

no one working for the BBC in the UK would make that sort of money as a developer

I don't know about that. I've seen a few tech jobs around the £70-80k mark at the BBC, which is about $120k. Throw in the additional benefits and it's probably not far off.

Hah, I wish. I was a senior engineer there and earned less than half that.

You don't join the BBC for the money in IT... for the lax culture perhaps.

a few, and they'll be in London so your living costs can be truly massive.

Sometimes the rates you see advertised are also 3 month contract jobs where someone is looking for attention by stating the contract amount as if the job was 12 months salaried.

I expect that the lack of a clearly defined "what they were trying to do" was a large part of the problem.