Nah, that's not the point. I forget who it was, maybe Oxfam did a study on the "American dream" income requirements, I think it was:

Family of four, one breadwinner, property owner, annual vacation, eating out once a week, two cars, college education for children...

You know, baseline idyllic suburban living. For the bay it was I believe north of $200K.

That's what I'm talking about. Someone making 250K in Mountainview isn't in it "for the money", they are just trying to live a life that frankly, most other countries can tender for about $75,000 but because of decisions we've made in how we structure society, it takes a quarter million a year.

This is the real equivalent to the 1950s idea of "middle class", it's just gotten so out of reach for most people, we construe people looking for it as greedy.

They aren't. Once you understand that, you can align incentives ... A $5,000 reward doesn't mean much for these people since 250k doesn't mean they're chasing dollars, instead a challenging rewarding job where they can work from home whenever they want, that's what keeps them around.