That's partly because high-paying salaries can be a stepwise function with respect to one's time. If you make $500K a year, it does not mean you can make $300K

That's partly because high-paying salaries can be a stepwise function with respect to one's time. If you make $500K a year, it does not mean you can make $300K a year by working three days a week. I'm sure many people are capable of pulling that off, but I guess more can't. Software engineering work in corporate requires certain level of continuity. You may be called upon for a meeting. You may need to jump into a conference call for a system outage. You may need to do an in-depth research to debunk your co-worker's design. You may be able to pace yourself, but your teams won't be able to wait, which disproportionally diminish your value. Again, we can argue how to practice essentialism, but the reality is that many people can't or are not capable of doing so. Otherwise, we wouldn't have books about essentialism.