The firms that hire them are mediators between the raw market and the labor market. And those firms almost always pay for the expected average productivity for that position. Which leads to ... the Team Compensation issue.

http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I'm just describing a phenomenon I've seen at large companies, i.e. 10% of the people do all the work.

The other 90% spend their time attending meetings, writing memos, and otherwise looking busy but not actually adding value.

I think that attending meetings and writing memos are work. Startups do eventually grow beyond the startup phase, and nobody has figured out a better way to manage large companies than bureaucracy. Middle managers, memos, interminable meetings...

You're right, organization and management are important.

It's just that there are so few good managers; at all the large companies where I worked, it was an open secret who was contributing and who was just taking up space.

The majority was in the latter category.

A large part of good management is figuring out who is contributing and who is taking up space and taking the required action ;-).

Unless, of course, you realize that you are one of the needless managers and do everything you can to hold on to your nice salary and benefits...