Staying loyal to one company is a bad money strategy and a good career one

The math is not complicated. Switch jobs and you get a real raise, stay and you get whatever the annual pool allows. Everyone under 35 knows this now and acts on it. I've been on the other side of it, watching good people leave for a number I couldn't match, and I don't blame a single one of them.

But the thing that compounds is not salary, it's context. The people I trust most are the ones who have seen a company through a bad year, watched a decision play out over three years instead of six months, and know why the weird process exists. That knowledge is worth real money later, when you're the one making the calls. So you're trading current cash for future judgment, and nobody frames it that way. Which trade did you make, and would you make it again?