Because if you can make it at Amazon, you can make it anywhere. It has a brutal work culture, and if you can survive it long enough to claw your way into the FAANG inner circle, you might, might get breathing room at some point to live your life at another company that isn't as brutal.

If you're someone who comes from the American Hinterlands [0], i.e., not a born-and-bred Coastal Elite, this could be the difference between barely surviving and being able to help your extended family survive. If you can keep off the hedonic treadmill yourself.

[0] https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/H/bo28...