>. How much revenue do you think a janitor or café staffer generates? Close to zero. The same goes for engineering. Someone has to do the unglamorous staff, or you end up with a dysfunctional company, with amazing talent (on paper).

There's two ways to make a profit. Gain more revenue, and not lose more revenue. Those kinds of staff are the latter, in addition to other aspects like HR (preventing lawsuits/settlements which are expensive).

But yes, there's so many hidden factors on measuring "productivity". That's why stack ranking is a bit stupid in the long run. Some people aren't just producing value but bringing out productivity in others. But that's an opportunity cost for a stacked system. Such individuals should be considered for management, not kicked out.

>The two tracked closely, rising in tandem until the 1970s, where they got decoupled. With income becoming much flatter, and productivity continuing to rise. That's how the world has been for the past 50 years on the macro and the micro

Yup, very well known that we really should be close to that ideal John Maynard Keynes predicted all the way in 1930 of 15 hour workweeks by 2030. Instead, I believe the average work week in the US is 50 hours and it's still a very controversial battle to get to a 4 day work week.