It's well known that the federal government simply DOES NOT pay market rate for talent. Now it is able to get away with that behavior in sectors (cough, banking) where there's consistent regulatory capture: so you're incentivized to spend some years at the government to learn how the system works, and then parlay that into a higher pay job subverting those systems. So the government still gets some rotating talent despite paying absolute shit. But there's no such regulatory capture possible in tech, nor am I interested in going down that path even if it existed (I consider it moderately evil, and am still naively idealist at least in that respect).
Look, I'm not solely money grubbing. Money is nice. I grew up without it and now that I have relatively larger quantities of it, my life has unquestionably improved (with luxuries like consistent access to good dentists). I'd eventually like more of it. I'm not short-term greedy. I'm willing to defer compensation for years, if not decades, if I feel that there's potential monetary reward at the end of the line.
But from what I see, Mikey Dickerson made a pile of money at first, and thus was free to pursue his political goals of bailing out an incompetent administration that he nevertheless believed in and wanted their signature achievement to succeed. And maybe I'll feel the same once my stock options vest and the mortgage, college tuition, and retirement stockings are stuffed. But don't forget that 99% of the time it's a solid dead end. Mikey was part of a high profile rescue of a high profile failure. But anyone else going in with naive ideals is probably going to get their souls crushed by the sheer drudgery of it, with no Time magazine cover to boost their profiles at the end of it.