I understand it but still hate doing the dance. Negotiation doesn't end once you've started a job either. If you want good projects, promotions, higher compensation, you usually have to negotiate for those too. Sometimes managers recognize talent and take initiative, but it's easier to compensate the loudest voices or people who are credible flight risks. This can lead to a very toxic culture. It takes very mature and long-sighted management to pay for value before the employee complains.
I agree with the author's one point: The best possible thing you can have is an alternative. I remember reading through the leaked Sony emails where executives were discussing compensation packages for people making millions of dollars. They didn't care much about how much revenue a VP brought in, if they were a nice person, how many hours they worked, but they sure cared a lot about losing them to a competitor. Performance reviews, metrics, titles, etc. were just a pretext to pay whatever the boss decided was necessary to keep them.
FWIW, I think careers where you know your objective value and have a portable skill-set or book of business are the best in terms of employees capturing more of their surplus value. Google's revenue per employee is probably similar to a good trading firm, but no one Google engineer can recreate Search, so they take home much less of their value than a trader would. You see the same thing in sales roles, law partners, etc. where employees and management both know what they bring to the table, and know they could walk out the door to another company if compensation is unfair.
I agree with the author's one point: The best possible thing you can have is an alternative. I remember reading through the leaked Sony emails where executives were discussing compensation packages for people making millions of dollars. They didn't care much about how much revenue a VP brought in, if they were a nice person, how many hours they worked, but they sure cared a lot about losing them to a competitor. Performance reviews, metrics, titles, etc. were just a pretext to pay whatever the boss decided was necessary to keep them.
FWIW, I think careers where you know your objective value and have a portable skill-set or book of business are the best in terms of employees capturing more of their surplus value. Google's revenue per employee is probably similar to a good trading firm, but no one Google engineer can recreate Search, so they take home much less of their value than a trader would. You see the same thing in sales roles, law partners, etc. where employees and management both know what they bring to the table, and know they could walk out the door to another company if compensation is unfair.