"Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay." -- Don Draper

I think that this quote hits on what most people want out of their careers. It's not about million-dollar salaries or being the boss or "changing the world". It's about validation. People are only happy in their careers when they feel that what they've accomplished, relative to their level of ability, is socially acceptable. Ambitious people, almost by definition, want to Get Out of middle-class mediocrity, but that doesn't mean everyone has to get rich. Being respected and famous or well-connected is enough for most people, but most people don't even get that. The present-time proxy is prestige and visible progress toward getting there. If you have a job at Google or Goldman or DE Shaw-- any job-- that's being on the putting green as most people see it, but if you're not a brand-name company you have to keep reaffirming to your people that you're capable of providing a ticket out of Blahville.

Startups give a reprieve from the traditional metrics. You don't have a lot of money right now, but that's OK, because it's part of the process and the story. No one has heard of your company, but that's OK, because people will. They're very good at making people feel OK about what they're doing based on the promise of future wealth and prestige. And because we're in a bubble, startups are prestigious even among a crowd that (a) has no business being involved (e.g. MBA-culture carpetbaggers who become founders on account of VC contacts rather than ability) and (b) would usually find them risky and a bit undignified. So right now it's fairly easy for a company to just say, "We're a funded startup" and become prestigious overnight.

The ivory tower is phenomenally good at creating this validation: the money isn't there, but "prestige" is. If you're successful in academia, you will legitimately feel like you're living the best possible life-- a "life of the mind". Finance can do the same thing: sure, there are people making $200,000 per year from lifestyle businesses in Madison rather than working 90 hours per week and living in a Manhattan shoebox, but you, the IBD analyst, are just 4 short years away from getting face-time with Fortune-500 CEOs. When a work culture develops the attitude that people outside of it are failures (cf. academia, high finance, "biglaw") that's usually for the purpose of keeping people captive. VC-istan is playing the same game, exaggerating the difference between the life of a "corporate drone" and what it offers. (Note: if you're not VP or higher in the startup, your work experience will NOT be higher quality than the corporate-drone life, the differences will be shitty health benefits, no name on the resume, a lower salary, and no severance if you get fired or the startup tanks.)

People tend to leave their jobs when they feel they can do better, because the stakes of the career game (even up to what kinds of opportunities your kids have and whether they'll be taken seriously by the world rather than being another generation of middle-class meat for society to process) are so high that it's just not acceptable to have an outcome below one's ability. You don't have to take the highest-paying opportunity at each juncture, but if you aren't re-evaluating every year or so whether you're at the best opportunity possible for your age, experience, and economic environment, you're at risk of falling behind, being labelled a B-player, and never catching up.

Most of these perks that seem like bullshit are actually about this validation effect. No one ambitious would tolerate, after 5 years at a job, having to ask permission to call a work-relevant conference a business trip (and be reimbursed) or being turned down on an attempt to start one's own project, but no one is going to expect to have that kind of support from the first day. People want autonomy and resources, in the long term, and the perks are a proxy: if they have nice pens, Macs, and free dinner on Day 1, they feel more confident that the company will provide the resources to really accomplish something and to live well by Day 1001.