Because you have to pay people more to do boring or evil work vs meaningful or exciting work

In my experience the pay difference was never that close that meaning and ethics played a role in the decision.

Cool exciting and meaningful science job: 200k

Big Tech surveillance capitalism job: 800k (at the low end)

The calculus has only been about affording housing and providing for the family.

	▲	hawaiianbrah 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		800k at the low end? Big tech pays well, but that sort of comp is reserved for very senior folks.
	▲	strken 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Where do I get this cool exciting and meaningful science job paying $200k?
	▲	sbrother 2 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		This is my experience too. I actually briefly took the cool exciting climate change related science job and then realized that I couldn’t actually support my family’s lifestyle on $160k so I left and went back to surveillance capitalism. I do feel guilt about that decision, but I like to imagine I’ll be able to go back to working on interesting and ethical things after my kids are out of the house.
	▲	singpolyma3 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Seems the pay is very different and thus is absolutely playing a role in the decision?