It's not saying they don't value the work. I work for a company that is paying me around 75k a year plus bonuses for long overseas trips. My co-workers and I have been given job offers at companies that are offering us 120k+ with bonuses for trips and more vacation time etc but we stay were we are. Why? Because we like this company, we like what they work to do, we like the philosophies they hold, and well it's an amazing place to be. The really cheesy saying of them being like family seriously applies. Yes we have people leave from time to time for these offers. The philosophy doesn't work in every company. You need a close knit community of people who strive for something and actually enjoy their job. The company doesn't do the exact pay for everyone idea but the wage gap between the lowest payed and highest payed on just salary alone is less than 20k (I think it dropped recently do to pay raises going out to lower tier positions). But say they did this philosophy in a company like Microsoft it would fail you don't have the community and shared vision with all employees many just work for the money. We work to create something new the money is just a part of repaying the efforts.