https://hbr.org/2013/04/does-money-really-affect-motiv
> The authors synthesized the results from 128 controlled experiments. The results highlighted consistent negative effects of incentives — from marshmallows to dollars — on intrinsic motivation. These effects were particularly strong when the tasks were interesting or enjoyable rather than boring or meaningless.
Ok, so they found that people who are top earners are no more satisfied with their jobs than bottom earners.
Might this be because top earners tend to be the types who neglect other aspects of their lives? Or who are hypercompeitive and are unlikely to be satisfied at any level, otherwise they would have stayed where they were?
Or maybe the higher the pay goes, the higher the concentration of high self discipline people willing to endure things they don't like for money. Etc.
And we are supposed to wave away all of these confounders because of controlled marshmellow experiments done on random students?
I'm sure Harvard meta studies do the best job possible distilling insight from these studies. The problem is how insightful these types of studies are in the first place.
That particular example was a meta study of over 100 other studies
But sure, I'm sure your expertise in study design and statistics is enough to invalidate their work and the work of hundreds of other researchers simply because you don't agree with the conclusion.
If Bezos wrote me a large enough check to never participate in specific hobbies again, I would take him up on it. I would be happier than before I took the offer. But I would clearly be even happier with a check that wasn't tied to ruining a hobby.
That being said, I'm a software engineer, and that's a really fortunate occupation to be passionate above due to the breadth of its applicability (e.g. allowing one to work more closely on my topic of interest) and salary potential.