> If you're already earning far more than you are ever likely to consume and considering putting in 40% extra workload, as the person in your example is doing,

> If you're already earning far more than you are ever likely to consume and considering putting in 40% extra workload, as the person in your example is doing, you are almost certainly doing so because you deeply believe in a mission or hypothesis, because you want to beat someone to something or because you like the status of being the person to transform the fortunes of $company or found $newcompany, not because you have the instrumental objective of receiving 100% of the target $100m pa profit in your personal bank account. That's a nice story, but is it true? If you believe that, then you'd have to believe that all of those people would work for free. If they really valued their missions above their own marginal incomes, then they'd simply plow 100% of what they would have been paid back into achieving that mission. No doubt, there are people like this. I know some of them. But they are definitely the exception, rather than the rule. Most people are motivated by a mixture of things, but money is an essential ingredient in that mixture.