If your career is equally or more remunerative than a payoff for silence, repairing your career-impacting public image would be equally or more valuable than a payoff.
It is reasonable to anticipate Pao is not giving up get career, and expects to make more than 2M from it. The spin about her during this debate has made her look pretty bad.
So... yeah. She could easily be motivated by money, in terms of investing in her long term earning potential.
Did you read what I was replying to? I was making an argument against the idea that she is somehow doing this for monetary gain. It doesn't matter how much she values money. If her chosen course of action is somewhat certain to pay less than the alternative, she is demonstrably not motivated (solely) by money.
Did you read my post? I was saying that perhaps she is indeed solely motivated by money. Turning down easy money in the chance to strike it big from the civil suit. If you only see the first part, then she apparently isn't motivated by money. But with the second part it becomes a possibility again.
Sure, maybe she believes her book will earn her more. But she'd need to write the #1 or 2 non-fiction book of the year to get there.