It's the money. It's all about the money. Things are pretty low stress and low stakes when you're hiring for a 50k pure salary role. When things blew up into the mid six figures with stock incentives, it became a whole thing. This pervades the work environment too. Everyone is scared to death of saying the wrong thing or messing something up or sounding stupid because it means your 800k mortgage won't be getting paid next month. I hate it.