It's about both, but the magnitudes matter. Would you do a job you love doing for free? Assuming the answer is no, then to paraphrase Churchill, we’ve established what kind of people we are; now we’re just haggling over the price.

Am I willing to take a 10% pay cut to work on things that are good for society instead of selling ads? Sure. 25%? Probably. But those aren't the magnitudes we're talking about. Total comp for a senior-to-staff level engineer at FAANG (or anyone competing with them) will be, let's say, 500k/year, plus best-in-the-world benefits. Total comp for government or charity work rarely cracks 100k, and even tech companies that are focused on good rather than profit, maybe 200.

And it's not like the FAANG jobs are bad - day-to-day, they're incredibly interesting. There's lots of fun stuff to build with smart people. The only problem is the background existential dread. It's also hard to argue that they're actively harming humanity in a lot of cases - maybe this line of reasoning works on potential Raytheon or Palantir employees, where the delta in morality is much greater, but convincing people to go from neutral-ish to good is harder than convincing them to go from bad to good.

So the question you're asking is, are you willing to take a 60-80% pay cut to possibly do a less interesting job, in exchange for moral fulfillment and knowing that you're helping humanity? You might think the answer is yes, but I think it's hard to fault people for whom it isn't.

In my case I work for a defense contractor and make decent money. I could work for another company doing more meaningful work. But I almost certainly would make less money. This would cause me to fall behind my peers pay scale wise. This is not terrible, as I live well within my means, but this impacts my future pay, and the money I can set aside for investing. If I take that step now, I’d be leaving a lot of personal wealth on the table.

But if I build up enough investment wealth to pay for my life in the future, I could take on more meaningful work in the future. If I leave for meaningful work now, I may be making money at that pay scale trajectory for the rest of my career, similar to how people who graduated in 2008 have never caught up to their peers wealth wise.

I think it comes down to control about your financial options. Relinquishing income puts you at a disadvantage.

The honest answer nobody will give.

They like the idea of doing something good, but not enough to sacrifice much for it.

I am the same way. I work on boring as heck ad tech and security stuff.

I could do much more interesting work, but I would make less. Interesting and beneficial to the world is even less.

I won’t even sacrifice pay for interesting.

This is the same with climate change. Emergency? Many will say so. Enough of an emergency not to fly to Thailand this winter or not buy a monster house? Nope.

I am the same way. I consider climate change a problem. But I’m also likely going to eat beef every day for the rest of my life in a meal or two.

My honest and obvious answer: because my family (wife, kids) need the money.

It's always a balancing act though. I won't go to do a job I loathe, because I won't stick there for long enough. I choose jobs that I'm fine doing, and pass many jobs that I might love doing but which won't pay the bills.

I was fortunate enough to have a job I outright loved, and which also paid well; it lasted 3.5 years. I'm immensely happy to have had such luck.

I want to retire comfortably. I'm probably going to be alive for a long time after I'm no longer employable. Money can make this possible.

The Sheriff will evict me at gunpoint if I don't pay the exorbitant rents in regions with an active job market.