I strongly suspect a large percentage of those who do this are guys with too much money looking for bragging rights.
A more extreme version is climbing the highest point on each continent.
Everest is not, BTW, a particularly difficult climb technically. There are much harder ones. The difficulties of Everest mostly involve weather and altitude, which are quite sufficient to make it sufficiently dangerous for almost anybody.
I agree. I was just commenting about the more generic concept of feeling desperate in life and feeling like you need to do something desperate.
I’m not a technical climber, but I’ve heard what you said about Everest not being a technically difficult climb. Sounds like one of the biggest determinants of whether you make it or not is your personal physiology/biology and ability to acclimate to high altitude/low oxygen. Doesn’t matter if you are incredibly strong and fit. If you can’t acclimate, you can’t finish this climb.