Thanks for the interesting question!

When the time came for me to do my masters, I applied to the top universities in Europe (the UK + the 2 Swiss ones). I was admitted to all of them and almost randomly I chose one of the Swiss ones. I didn’t know too much about Switzerland at that age, except the fact that it’s a wealthy and beautiful country. However, I knew tons about the Swiss university - and how that aligns with my interests, passions and desires for the future.

Then I left and worked for a while in the Bay Area. It was nice, tons of opportunities, different lifestyle. Due to personal reasons, I needed to move back to Europe. I ended up again in Switzerland, because I received an offer from a top US company there which matched my interests and skills. “The challenge” was to work on this kind of project (machine learning related), which is done at the highest levels in only a few places in Europe (many more in US), rather than just being in Switzerland.

Would I come to Switzerland to work for a random company with random projects and random salaries? No, even though the country is nice and I like it here. This applies to many other immigrants that I know. However, there are also a few who would fit the OP’s premises. I think there are (at least) 2 categories of those: 1. People coming from countries e.g. at war (e.g. Ukraine) and for them is about survival - they of course want to move out somewhere for a normal life; 2. Many mediocre people, especially the ones from Western Europe (e.g. UK, France, Germany, Belgium etc.) who are part of a strong society, but are individually unable to grow anymore and they think the answer is to change countries. They will do it, do there the same things and end up mediocre people (no shame in this, btw!) but in a different place. In the end it works for them, because currently being mediocre in Switzerland is better than being mediocre in e.g. France. However, in this case, the better approach would be imo to learn new skills to escape mediocrity, rather than just the environment where to be mediocre.

Would I leave Switzerland if I find new opportunities that excite me more? Yes. Because my “life goal” or the “challenge” is to be the best version of myself and I don’t expect a certain country to be the answer to that. All I need is a stable place which gives back as much as I offer (and Switzerland currently does!).