&gt; and humans are harder to deal with, ultimately, than computers are<p>I cannot imagine this to be true. Take for example the Paxos algorithm. There are few people who can fully understand it. Yet you are saying that some businessperson is doing work that is more difficult than dealing with the intricacies of distributed computing?<p>The only reason the businessperson is making more money is because he has maneuvered himself into a better position.