Note that these figures include admins, HR, finance, warehouse staff, etc. and not just hackers. Taking that into account, $3m annually per programmer isn't outlandish according to these figures. Remember that each programmer is offset by n support staff, who will often not contribute directly to revenue.
You can calculate the analogous numbers for any company that is publicly traded in the US and some other exchanges that require employee counts to be published. There are also other aggregates posted on the web.
So if you're aiming to create $60k of value for yourself, you're aiming at a far lower number than anyone who would hire you.
I disagree. It is BECAUSE of the HR, finance, and warehouse staff that the products that are being sold have that value proposition.
If you're 37 Signals you're providing a SaaS product, which means that people are paying exactly because you have a level of support that goes beyond mere development. Also, there is a certain "economies of scale" going on where by adding less and less people you can make a product more useful to a larger segment of the market (because you can include many of the little featurettes that are deal-breakers for many businesses).
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2283-ranking-tech-companies-b...
Note that these figures include admins, HR, finance, warehouse staff, etc. and not just hackers. Taking that into account, $3m annually per programmer isn't outlandish according to these figures. Remember that each programmer is offset by n support staff, who will often not contribute directly to revenue.
You can calculate the analogous numbers for any company that is publicly traded in the US and some other exchanges that require employee counts to be published. There are also other aggregates posted on the web.
So if you're aiming to create $60k of value for yourself, you're aiming at a far lower number than anyone who would hire you.