> I have absolutely no problem with big salaries for people with a balanced mindset and life. First, saying that Silicon Valley's housing and inequality is cau

> I have absolutely no problem with big salaries for people with a balanced mindset and life. First, saying that Silicon Valley's housing and inequality is caused by technologists "getting rich or dying trying" seems gravely wrong. Second, many professionals find their work intrinsically fulfilling and enjoyable. Not everyone works just for money or to fill an some kind of an unhealthy addiction. Postdocs and graduate students often work a great deal harder for a lot less. You're also assuming an even more atomized society than anything Rand could imagine: most people understand that for them alone utility of wealth is a step function, they don't need to be told that. Yet, they want their kids to attend good schools, which means means paying outlandish prices for a tiny home in a good school district (in most of Bay Area counties schools are assigned by residence) or even more for a private school. They also don't want to jeopardize their families with the kind of pay-check to pay-check existence that leads to disaster when one of the dual earners loses their income. Is this morally right? No, Silicon Valley has deep housing problems (geography, failure to build upwards, zoning, and other regulations) and the entire state's education system is a nightmare. Yet as much as we'd like these problems to go away, this is the reality and we can't avoid it for the time being. It's also great that folks like Bill Gates exist, for whom achievement is not a step function. As a Linux/BSD user I hated his guts as Microsoft CEO, but his non-profit work has been nothing short of amazing. He could have easily taken "f u money" decades ago and retired to a middle-class lifestyle with some angel investing on the side. Yet he amassed a fortune long after it ceased to bring him any _personal_ benefit: he chose to use it to pursue even more ambitious projects that benefit everyone. I'm not in any way saying that private non-profits make government investment un-needed -- the Internet, immense achievements in aerospace, etc... are but a few examples of public sphere producing great things. Even Peter Thiel has admitted as much in recent interviews. Yet, public investment in hard problems is obviously not mutually exclusive with private enterprise either.