Astronomical salaries probably has something to do with it.

Yeah that could convince smart competent people to grind their teeth and take a second chance under the same management.

But I don’t think a self respecting person would do that over and over.

When people live in multi million dollar homes, self-respect doesn't pay monthly mortgage.

So it's really not the astronomical salary, it's the astronomical debt.

Yes and no. The compensation is a lot, but you're not necessarily able to just quit on a dime even if you live humbly. Interviewing takes weeks now and weeks more just to find a proper replacement. And salaries can fund you for months, bu t not years (let alone if you have a fammily)

I'll also say the obvious here in Sinclair's quote about salaries: you can indeed pay for someone's self respect.

This would imply most of these types of positions are filled with less competent people willing to package and sell their self respect alongside their time?

(Thus commanding a rate similar to a more competent person who doesn’t package it to sell.)

Astronomical debt caused by astronomical real estate inflation.

Joke is, most of these homes aren't worth anywhere close to their paper value.

Cy Porter's home inspection videos... jeez. How these "builders" are still in business is mind-blowing to me (as a German). Here? Some of that shit he shows would lead to criminal charges for fraud.

The land is worth more than the structure in these areas.

You may be over-estimating how many people are self-respecting?

Depends on the paycheck.

People will do crazy things for just $100. Including literally get fucked in the ass by a stranger.

7 figures? Ho boy. They’ll use way fancier words though for that.

There is an old Russian joke, that goes like this:

A man approaches a girl and asks, "Would you sleep with me for $1 million?”

She responds, “Yes, of course!”

Excited, he then asks, “What about for $1?”

She indignantly replies, “Who do you think I am?”

To which he responds, “We already established who you are; now we’re just discussing the price.”

I think it fits there. There is surprising amount of people believing that they have some Values, but just to a point when they were offered to sell them for a right price.

In today’s market it’s mostly because of the lack of other options to earn a livelihood

serious answer - you find a team with a good direct manager who handles all the upward interactions themselves, and then you basically work for that manager, rather than for the company.

There's a high switching cost with substantial information asymmetry. Good places are hard to find in some absolute sense and it's hard to evaluate whether a new team is actually going to be good or not. And even if you do find a good team, there's no guarantee it'll last past the next reorg.

Rent wont pay itself. Switching jobs has costs.