Salary is the most valuable thing, however. Because I would happily take a salary of 1 billion dollars with an awful manager and a no-fun team. And, conversely, I would never take a job with the best people on planet earth for a salary of one dollar.

If you were offered a job with an awful manager and a no-fun team for $250,000, and a job with the best people on the planet for $249,999, which one would you choose?

Right, naturally the extent matters, but it's still the most important statistic when doing cost analysis.

Also, other statistics are just wage in disguise. Work-life balance refers to working less, which means a higher wage. PTO is also just working less, which is a higher wage. WFH means less driving + lower cost of living, which is an effective higher wage.

Well, of course, you can make up hypotheticals. I used to say that you couldn't pay me enough to work in NYC. But of course I didn't literally mean that I wouldn't take FU money for a couple years to work there (not doing anything criminal etc.). But that wasn't going to realistically happen.

If you can't live off of $40,000 a year, you are not taking that job. I'm not saying there aren't people already independently wealthy and "working" for fun but those are an infinitesimal exception.

I think they mean that they will take a job with those benefits for 40k less than a job without. I assume generally they are looking at positions that pay substantially more than that.