Thiel is missing the point. The point is that you need to pay people enough so that money ceases to be a factor. For certain people money is not a factor so it

Thiel is missing the point. The point is that you need to pay people enough so that money ceases to be a factor. For certain people money is not a factor so it doesn't matter whether it pay them $1 or $1MM. To others $150k is just enough money to live very comfortably but not enough to do nothing. Buffett once commented, "I want to give my kids just enough so that they would feel that they could do anything, but not so much that they would feel like doing nothing".