I'm not really sure it's a "meme" that the worth of a programmer is an exponential function of his skill. Seems like I've read that this is the case (not 100 times more, never heard that, that's your own rhetoric coloring your faulty interpretation of what I said) many times over from articles linked right here on HackerNews.
I'm not going to argue with you about whether or not a skilled programmer is much, much more valuable than a mediocre/apathetic one, because that would be the world's silliest argument. A skilled anything is much, much more valuable than a mediocre and disinterested one.
What I'm referring to actually is an old quote attributed to Bill Gates :
"A great lathe operator commands several times the wage of an average lathe operator, but a great writer of software code is worth 10,000 times the price of an average software writer."
I'm not going to argue with you about whether or not a skilled programmer is much, much more valuable than a mediocre/apathetic one, because that would be the world's silliest argument. A skilled anything is much, much more valuable than a mediocre and disinterested one.