Lots of people on HN have clearly never worked for a cost center. If you work in a cost center like IT, employees never see the benefits of improved efficiency unless they do what this person is doing and not disclose their process. If they did, they'd simply cut his hours and return the saved money to the business. The people wondering why management wouldn't reward him don't understand that the business views IT as a necessary evil and not an area of growth. Budgets go down; not up.