Could also view it through the lens of simply not building enough housing stock.. imagine if that was a high-rise so that instead of one person living right off the beach it was 100

Yeah, alot of high stress jobs pay enough to live on, but you cant really get ahead. And so whats the point? Probably the CTO had actual equity, by now they consider it a random management role, the actual person working that job can just be swapped as needed