I can say that for me, at some point, you just really want a team with good vibes and low BS.
I took a 20% pay cut 3 years back and moved from one startup to another because the vibes were better with an older founding team. It was fantastic and we built some amazing stuff at an incredible pace.
That startup recently folded and the original startup reached out and brought me back at 150% comp of the other startup. But day to day I don't enjoy it as much and the vibes just aren't the same with this crew.
My lesson: team vibes are severely underrated and sometimes even more money doesn't make it better.
Your time is precious. You spend it once and you can't predictably get any more of it.
I suggest you choose your optimisation goal function very very carefully to suit the outcomes you want (money is only an intermediate step). It's hard to decide what we really want. Money is the default game that we see our peers playing (and it's easy to gain moderate success at the money game). It requires more attention to find and learn from people that have had success playing less common games.
Cynically (or even conspiratorially) investigate the suggested life defaults for you by your society as though they were dark patterns designed to mislead you.
I like what Naval wrote about status games (money is only one aspect of status). Paraphrased:
Status is a zero-sum game, not a positive-sum game. There’s always a subtle competition going on between status and wealth. For example, when journalists attack rich people or the tech industry, they’re really bidding for status. The problem is, to win at a status game you have to put somebody else down. That’s why you should avoid status games in your life – because they make you into an angry combative person. You’re always fighting to put other people down and elevate yourself and the people you like. Status games are always going to exist; there’s no way around it. Realize when you’re getting attacked by someone else and they’re trying to look like a goody-two shoes. They’re trying to up their own status at your expense. They’re playing a different game. And it’s a worse game.
Money has no maximum so it's a weird goal to try and reach. I wonder why Warren Buffett waited until 95 to decide to retire? He would easily be the richest man in the world if he hadn't charitably given so much away.
Another relevant paraphrased snippet from an interview about better lives for the elite: https://archive.ph/kF0YR
There’s this study called the American Freshman Survey [edit:snip] In the 1960s, 50% of students said making as much money as possible was a really important goal. Today, that’s 80% to 90%. That change shows that this is not human nature. It is culture.