You are assuming that money is the motivation for people to get jobs. I&#x27;m an older developer, and I definitely have my favorites of past co-workers. We&#x27;re all established enough financially that the extra stress and pain of consulting doesn&#x27;t sound good to us. Same for doing a startup -- just not the lifestyle we are after. But being able to settle down, spend our working hours with people we have grown to love, whom we know work well together, working on a shared vision for a company, and staying there for years, watching our work have a positive influence on the world... that sounds pretty good.<p>It is a question of where your ambitions lie - if you have already accomplished your financial goals, already written software that is used worldwide, already done the startup thing, and still want to code instead of going the management or investor route... why would you not pursue something like this?<p>Admittedly, Stripe is a poor candidate for this... nothing against them as a company, but people in my situation tend to look for work that has meaning on a charitable level -- environmental, education, health care, or other such areas where we can really make a difference in the world would be appealing.