Whether people like to admit it or not, very rarely do people work for anything but money and career advancement. You can claim you work for passion, the love of the game or whatever 100 other reasons people tend to give out. All it takes is 2 years of no raises and a couple of promotions for colleagues for you to start not wanting to work for whatever reason you convinced yourself you were working for.

I find a lot of people work at a certain place for the social life, and the money comes second. Including some surprisingly high performers.

The only reason money comes second is because they’re paid enough. And even with enough money, like I said, two years without a raise while everyone else gets it, suddenly social life isn’t going to be that important.

No, I have plenty of friends who are not making enough (and could be making double) but due to being risk-averse and relatively content stay in low-paid jobs. Only a crisis moves certain people from their comfort spot.

I think that becomes more common with income brackets that can start to feel like "enough".

If you've spent time struggling to make ends meet, even median income can feel like previously unimaginable wealth and security, and workplace satisfaction is rarely something that you had a great deal of choice around. If you've spent most of a decade making six figures with benefits, it's easier to decide an extra 10k or even 50k isn't worth the added stress.

Cost of living and personal situation (dual incomes, dependents) can shift that needle around quite a lot too.