|If a single person can accomplish everything that an average team of 3 programmers/designers can, in the same amount of time, would you compensate the single person at the combined pay of the 3 average employees? The single developer will provide the same level of documentation, testing, communication as any average team of 3 would.|
Certainly there is a lot of benefit to having a team of 3 (basic redundancy, knowledge transfer, mix of ideas etc.) and just as many headaches (management, HR issues, conflicts, communication problems). However, if the final product (code, presentation, documentation, delivery etc.) from both the single developer and the team-of-three are similar, would you consider hiring the single developer at 3x the salary of others?
And why or why not?
Edit: I should add, this is not a rant/complaint/request-for-job/rockstar-rage but just a question that came up while discussing labor market, economics, startups, and above-average skills with a friend.