[brailsafe]

What a desperately condescending thing to say. Really it comes down to a matter of perspective on life and your definition of "hard-driving". If your definition of that is writing code for more money, then fine. Other people work a hell of a lot harder, in much worse conditions, for a lot less, and choose to do it in a place where they like to live and the people they enjoy being around. Pretty compelling to me.

[cpncrunch]

It's basically people who want to work at places like google and earn $250k.

Still, there is a lot of "top talent" who chooses not to go that route. Working on my own stuff I get to work on much more interesting and challenging stuff -- as well as making a larger personal contribution to "changing the world" in a small way -- than I would likely achieve if I was working as a software engineer at google. I don't earn as much, but my quality of life is much better.