My phrasing was weird but I'm actually speaking from personal experience here. I haven't climbed Everest but I've pursued other activities to extreme limits, e.g. running 100 mile high mountain races. These activities are all fun and have intrinsic rewards, but a large number of people doing them (my prior self included) were really in it for the external recognition of having done it. Everest seems to be the epitomy of that. I'm sure there's lots of people quietly climbing Everest just because it's there, but there's certainly very many doing it because of the name Everest and because it's the highest.