So I’m 20 and I’ve started looking at the salaries of jobs/careers, and this is the impression I’ve gotten. Like that you could spend years cramming a ton of knowledge about a very niche field, and still only get 2-3x what a run-of-the-mill job makes. Is this true? If yes then I guess this route to wealth would only make sense (due to the diminishing returns) if the topic truly spoke to you, right? Are there alternative career paths to good pay than being really good at something really specific?
To be honest, when you continue to work for the same company, your knowledge will also only grow by +2% to +4% per year.
You’ll be the go-to guy for a number of things, all of which you’ve done a thousand times. Doing something else will decrease the team’s efficiency, cause someone else is the go-to guy with the expert knowledge on that.
And you only work within the context of your company, without getting exposed to how other companies do things.
It takes a certain soft skill to break out of one setting and hit the ground running somewhere else, which most don’t have. And after you switch, you bring a valuable outside view into whatever company you enter. That’s part of the reason you can demand more at a new workplace.
Staying for a long time in one place also offers comfort and familiarity, which have value for people, especially with families.
Employers need to pay more to make up for that loss in “value”.