Utility is a concept from economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility You can think of it as "how much benefit I get

Utility is a concept from economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility You can think of it as "how much benefit I get from a thing". What he is referring to is diminishing marginal utility, which is that as you consume more and more of a good (in this case, income) you derive less benefit from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility This is backed up by psychology research indicating that people hit a happiness plateau at some income level.