I graduated from business school with roughly $200,000 of debt and a choice. I could manage investments in the family office of one of the world’s top hedge funds or I could take a job at the Connecticut Green Bank. The difference in salary and bonus was, to put it mildly, appreciable. I chose the Green Bank.

For the (many) people who measure the worth of a job by its paycheck, my choice is mystifying. They rationalize my decision as the admirable, perhaps naïve, pursuit of meaningful work: I’m a public servant. I’m helping society. I feel good about what I do. Yes, this is all true, but such assessments are incomplete for three reasons. First, they conflate a job with a career. Second, they oversimplify the math on compensation. Third, they ignore a fundamental shift underway in the business community: The idea that we have to choose between "doing good" for the world and "doing well" for ourselves is increasingly misguided. READ MORE