Could not agree more. Even if as an intellectual, you are in the right company that might compensate you fairly, there is a hard ceiling- just that it’s higher than at other companies. Working for a bounded salary is the surest way to stay poor aka put all your eggs in one basket. My definition of poor is not abject poverty of course, but very much being aware that you need either the next paycheck or the 12,16,24th paycheck and so on.