$250k can do a good job of easing meme-induced pain.
"survive underwater" what a joke. Yes, there will be good engineers there who will be sad to see it go this way, but they choose to be there, get paid better than 99% of humanity for that.
You are removing the humanity from these people. Yes some don't care and just take their salaries. But I'm sure some people if not majority is stressed due to the situation.
YOU NEED TO USE MOAR AI!