I don’t know how much credit/inspiration this should really give people. As you note, the other conditions for EA org work is often better than external jobs (though this is far from universal). And as you allude to in your post, there are large quality of life improvements from working on something that genuinely aligns with my values. At least naively, for many people (myself included) it is selfishly worth quite a large salary cut to do this. Many people both in and outside of EA also take large salary cuts to work in government and academia as well, sometimes with less direct alignment with their values, and often with worse direct working conditions.
I don’t know how much credit/inspiration this should really give people. As you note, the other conditions for EA org work is often better than external jobs (though this is far from universal). And as you allude to in your post, there are large quality of life improvements from working on something that genuinely aligns with my values. At least naively, for many people (myself included) it is selfishly worth quite a large salary cut to do this. Many people both in and outside of EA also take large salary cuts to work in government and academia as well, sometimes with less direct alignment with their values, and often with worse direct working conditions.