I mean, there probably should be a 50x difference. I've seen a single dev get done the work of 50 average devs many times. A single excellent engineer can produce immense business value.

It always baffles me how many places only pay sr engineers 3-5x more.

A 50x dev should work for himself and make more money than the business hiring them. IF they cant make it work, they weren't 50x after all

This is obviously untrue on its face. Just because you’re a great programmer does not mean you’re a good entrepreneur

Maybe it would be more valuable for this company to hire someone who could create value rather than someone who can write 50x more code.

I have worked with those people and most of what they created was a heap of code that someone had to maintain after they left.

I didn't say "write 50x more code" I said "gets done the work of 50 average people". Think of all the meetings, admin, HR, accounting, meetings, stand-ups, one-on-ones, architects, code reviews, process improvements meetings, directors, and meetings needed to staff 50 engineers. Think of how much time is spent just keeping them vaguely aligned. For 50 engineers you need at least 4/5ths total effort just into keeping everyone and everything in sync and moving forward. There's tremendous waste.

It's not hard for one or two decently talented engineers to accomplish more in a year than 50 people.

Why not both. If you’re 50x, or even 2x better at anything than average you should probably be hired in a heartbeat

If you are a 50x programmer working on a platform that others created (a business), you aren't really a 50x programmer. The environment for their productivity was created by someone else, not them.

Many do in fact go into business for themselves. A lot of my former colleagues all started their own businesses and are doing very well.