"Most" of us? Maybe if most of us are execs and senior VPs. For the rest of us $10K is a big chunk of change--a significant percentage of compensation. $10K is about $500/mo after taxes, which could, for example, mean being able to afford to live in a much better neighborhood or send your kids to a better school.

There's a lot of studies that show that money is a poor motivator long term once you pass the essentials for life (which admittedly in the Valley is higher than many other places). As important, some of those studies show that especially in roles requiring creativity (like engineering, design, etc) it actually negatively effects motivation and output.

See Dan Pink's Drive for a good summary of many of this research, which has led to his Autonomy - Mastery - Purpose framework that is part of his more well-known TED Talk on the subject: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation

Coincidentally, those 3 pieces of his framework hit on many of the aspects of this thread and especially the Gallup research on the desire for goals and growth.

This response has always seemed meaningless to the point of insult; and the conspiracy theorist in me wonders how much of "they don't REALLY want/need money" is motivated by the people who have to pay out.

(sorry, this comes off as very blunt, please take it as only a comment on the argument and not you, but I needed to use strong words to express the strength of what it makes me feel)

As you say, "essentials for life" are different in the valley, but are also different per-person. My essentials were MUCH simpler when I was living alone. When I got a fiancee in industry, my essentials became easier to support Now that she went into academia, it suddenly became a struggle.

Combine this with area of living, and what do you see? That the "essentials" are far more dynamic than your argument typically lets on, not only in terms of material differences like spousal compensation/how many children you're supporting, but psychological/learned response, e.g. "I have to get my used car repaired every year or so because I can't afford a new one off the lot".

Is that essential? Different people could probably make different arguments. Does it hurt when you have that thought pulling in next to someone driving a Porsche? You better damn well bet it does.

So to bring this back to the root: VERY LONG TERM maybe I could agree with you, but life isn't just a very long term calculation, the dominating thoughts day to day are (at least for the less zen of us) very now-focused, and expose many situations in which a little more money (as a parent comment said) would drastically increase the quality of life.

Yes. You are right it's dynamic and does change. Certainly as more people are in your family (single->married->children) your cost structure that makes you happy definitely changes.

Issues tied to financial stability certainly will drive you to want to get a higher salary, especially with how impossible home ownership is in places like Silicon Valley.

With that being said, if you aren't having to stare at your bank balance every morning and sweat your salary, then what makes you happiest at work is those other factors of things like Pink's framework of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. It's also the lack of those 3 areas that will make a job that pays sufficiently pretty damn miserable leading you to seek a more fulfilling job if you can find one that meets your salary needs. I bet there's a limit to what you'd put up with at work even if they paid you $1 million per year.

Having worked in a number of early stage startups I have talked to a number of older members of teams I've been on who have forgone as much as $50-60k in salary to move from a giant company to a mid-size startup. That definitely affected their quality of life to do it, but it was worth it to wake up happy, despite perhaps making some sacrifices. As they told me, they had to make some adjustments in their lifestyle but then got used to it and it was okay.

The other important factor that I would encourage you to look at Pink's research for is that it turns out if you use financial incentives to tie to creative tasks (like an engineer shipping features) it actually has been found in psychology studies to lower the quality of the work and the motivation of the person. This means bonuses are often a really bad idea. The good thing about a salary is that it is disconnected from a specific creative task.

I fully agree, and thank you for taking the time to comment on what's now a very old thread. I'll put it even more bluntly:

Cavemen had "the essentials of life." That's not what I'm going for, and not what most people are going for. Every little bit extra helps.

Except for maybe some Buddhist monks who have given up all material things, everyone would like another dollar. However, there's also fulfillment at work.

Go take the absolute highest paying offer the next time you interview for jobs, and if you do that a series of times, I think you'll find you won't be as happy as taking the best overall offer that takes into account things like:

- Role/responsibility

- How interesting the work is

- Whether you're excited to work with your future peers

There's a reason people leave finance despite the high pay. There's more to life than money.

But what are you willing to trade for it? Keep in mind that I'm not talking about people who are just above making ends meet; I'm talking about people who are already making 6 figures. I would imagine that most of us, the additional money, unless it is a very significant sum, like a 30% raise, would rather not have the additional stress and the additional responsibilities, and instead be able to use that time and energy on things that we want to do, like hobbies or being with family.

I am rather well paid. I push very hard in my job, to try and aim for monetary promotions. I live in such a high cost of living area, however, that even on my salary it is difficult to afford a house. and start a family, ESPECIALLY competing with double income households.

This leaves me with three options. Rent forever, at increasing rates. (not a feasible option). Buy a house now, ride the constant increasing prices like everyone already in the market, be glad I'm not a buyer any more. (trying, but very hard to compete when 10% above listing is common.) Save up and move the hell out.

In any of these situations, a 5%, hell, a 1% raise compounded over a decade, makes a _meaningful_ difference in how long you'd be able to sustain living in a better cost of living area (e.g. if I moved out into the country somewhere), if not also on how much I can put out as a down-payment or as a lifeline to keeping up with increasing rent.

Perhaps it's a sign of what would have in the past been comfortably middle class being more and more stretched, but every little bit counts; it's an oddly similar feeling to when I used to be far less well off a few decades back.

Yes, most of us. I'd be willing to say that many of us are probably making enough to live in good neighborhoods with good schools already. And remember, that extra $10k doesn't come free; you'll have to work harder, with more stress, and possibly more hours. I'd be willing to wager that most of us are being paid enough to where that's not really a winning proposition.