Well yeah, but being a CTO at a major org isn't exactly a low-paying gig.

The interesting thing to me is that the belief that Anthropic is going achieve something like AGI appears to have really spread through SV. If not AGI, at least greatly disturb their old cushy SaaS jobs.

Also, I still do believe some people just want to work on "cool" stuff.

edit: not just CTOs and CPOs, I mean John freakin Jumper, who got the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, left his VP role at DeepMind to have no reports, and be an IC at Anthropic.

I find this whole trend extremely interesting.

What does this mean? Most people select jobs based on projected compensation. I get that there are people who do things for love, but they're the ones doing something remarkable. It'd be especially strange to be a software developer working for love not money; we are in the business of automating away people's jobs.