1) No one just gives money away, especially to the programmers over the "traders". So if a programmer gets $500,000 you can be fairly certain more than a few people really think the programmer is worth it.
2) It's the people version of "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". Someone else has already vouched for this person, based on the compensation they gave the programmer. So if he/she turns out to be a bad hire, hey, not our fault, Citadel thought they were worth it.
But to be fair, its based on two things:
1) No one just gives money away, especially to the programmers over the "traders". So if a programmer gets $500,000 you can be fairly certain more than a few people really think the programmer is worth it.
2) It's the people version of "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". Someone else has already vouched for this person, based on the compensation they gave the programmer. So if he/she turns out to be a bad hire, hey, not our fault, Citadel thought they were worth it.