Absolutely! You spend the majority of your awake time at work. Some people optimize for money, others optimize for status, happiness or any other objective humans can have.

I think the thing that really upsets people is that the company changed course. People who go to work at a HFT firm are probably all motivated by compensation - and would expect that, because it’s baked into the company culture and business model.

People choose to work somewhere based the reward it offers. If that changes, without their consent, it breaks an unwritten contract.