"For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp" This may be true for some, but here is what I've seen and experienced perso

"For one thing people stop fucking with you when you're getting top of market comp" This may be true for some, but here is what I've seen and experienced personally + family members and friends I've talked with: 1. You are a full-time employee who is either very skilled or not as skilled but getting paid in the top 5-10% as a senior or principal software engineer. For a while you get to work on whatever you want to as long as it makes the company better, so you write open source projects, etc. Then, something happens. Either your company gets outside investment, or is bought-out/merges/buys another company, or they fall on hard times, or there is competition, or someone in management reads some new book or goes to some conference, or you just get different management, and now you all of a sudden either have been driven to cut corners which leads to a mess, or morale sucks or people buy into management's crappy philosophy which which leads to no innovation and suddenly it feels like no one else is using the crappy libraries and frameworks you had been using, or things for some other reason just suck. In this case, you're still making a lot of money. Happy now? Sure you could have found a new job, but wait hold on a second- you are in the top 5-10% so jobs that pay that well may not come as easily. Looks like you're fucked. 2. You work your ass off as an independent, grow the company, and are doing well working for large company X in NYC. You had an awesome time putting your family through hell in the beginning for peanuts, but somehow you managed to make it past all that. And now, what do you have? You're making a lot and have several guys/gals depending on you and you are still working your ass off and now you feel like if you quit, you take all of them down with you. Maybe even you're still on your own, but if you quit to take a break, your family will suffer because they won't have what they did. What I suggest: do what you believe in as long as you can survive and meet the needs of your family. Push hard or don't, but be happy if you can. This will make the world a better place. You may end up making too much and getting into the same predicament, but if you're lucky, you'll at least not be focused on more money than you need. And if you do get more money than you need- share it. Much good in the world has come from those with money sharing what they have.