Michael Lewis talks about the mismatch between salary and value for offensive lineman in his book "The Blind Side", which is similar to how great hackers are underpaid according to their value. Once the NFL shifted to a free market, the salaries of offensive lineman sky-rocketed 10x in some cases.<p>The problem for most hackers as I see it is that you can't know someone's value until you've worked with them for awhile. Since your value isn't "public information", your salary won't get driven up through a bidding war.