[pm90]

For a lot of people the salaries are too good to pass on. And its not hard to rationalize what you are doing. This is kinda why a broader education seems very important to me, so that smart people understand exactly what they are contributing to and can take a reasoned stand.

In other cases, it may be just a small part of an otherwise great organization. e.g. Palantir is used by CIA to track bad actors, but it can also be misused by police depts (hypothetically?). So the developers of the software think they are helping protect their citizens but it may be misused.