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Comment by ugh | Hacker News Reader

This is just a tangent, but I wonder whether Robert Gibbs really quit at least partly because his salary was too low. (That’s what Obama’s remark about his departure seems to suggest.)

I don’t think you become Press Secretary of the White House because of the salary, you become Press Secretary because you are passionate about it. (For all you cynics out there: replace “passionate about it” with “power hungry”.)

You certainly don’t have to feel ashamed or poor at cocktail parties if you are the Press Secretary of the White House, I would much rather suspect that you don’t actually have time to go to any cocktail parties and that that could be the much larger problem.

Press Secretary is not a job you have forever (eight years seem like the natural maximum) and I’m certain that you have great chances of landing a highly paid job after that.

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As you point out: while it wouldn't be prudent to go into politics for the direct money, the modern reality is that politics is a route to a staggering amount of future money. Not unlike paying vast sums to go to an Ivy League school; not because the education is so much better, but because future opportunities will be.

In that light, I don't see a huge line between his decision to 'cash-out' at this particular point in time and the statement 'because his salary was too low'.

I like that angle. Four years as communications director of one of the most spectacular presidential campaigns of all times, two years as White House Press Secretary, that certainly opens a lot of doors (and should definitely land him a book deal).

It’s certainly understandable that when you then feel burnt out after six years of stress the thought of leaving must be very attractive. It’s still a bit strange that Obama makes a reference to his modest compensation.

I've got to imagine he's adjusting expectations and trying to frame the conversation before the likely stories about how much Gibbs is going to make in the private sector.

After Peter Orszag's move to the private sector generated a non-trivial brouhaha, it'd be more surprising if he didn't.

That's simply a cover. No way he quit because of a salary issue. On top of that, no way he would have felt ashamed or poor at a cocktail party. I mean, he is directly speaking to the POTUS - likely daily. Many very rich people don't even have that luxury.

Exactly.. At least the last 3 or 4 White House Press Secretaries made that same salary "joke" upon leaving the position and returning back to their high paying private sector media jobs.

Yeah, but more notably, they all left after a couple years. I think it's a pretty high stress job, and leaving is probably more about the stress than the salary. It just manifests itself as "I'm not getting paid enough for this shit".

More cynically, to the extent that ex-press secretaries' private sector value derives from their access to those in power, they're worth more while their crew is still in office.

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