6 ms·

Assuming you are correct, which I suspect you are, that means the group of people that aren't really motivated by money make up a tiny percentage of the work fo

by phaus 10y ago

Assuming you are correct, which I suspect you are, that means the group of people that aren't really motivated by money make up a tiny percentage of the work force. Therefore anyone running a business can safely disregard any idiot making the claim that money isn't a motivator, except on the rare occasions which they find themselves hiring executives that make north of $500k. For normal people, its infuriating to hear businesses complain about turnover and a lack of loyalty when their "performance" raises amount to a cost of living increase, and their promotion raises don't bring them in line with the salaries that people getting hired at the more senior position make coming through the door. Money isn't the only reason I work, but it is one of the reasons. Its more about the principle. A company that wants loyalty should show loyalty and not attempt to nickel and dime the talent. Tech companies are usually responsible for creating the turnover they complain about.

beat 10y ago
I was strongly influenced in my thinking by Jason Cohen's "Rich vs King" article, he talks about the S-curve of wealth utilization. Once you hit a few million in the bank, you have enough money to fund a reasonably lavish lifestyle, without working, for the rest of your life. At that point, how do you motivate someone?
- phaus 10y ago
  I make low 6 figures doing network security. If I hit 200k, literally the only thing you could do to motivate me would be to treat me well and give me interesting things to do. Fortunately, my employer already does both of those. I just wish it wasn't almost a requirement to leave in order to get a decent raise. Note: I'm not expecting to make $200k in a technical role as a security analyst any time soon, its just hypothetical.
  - softawre 10y ago
    It is also interesting to think your number, 200k, is strictly based on how much you make now. What would your 18yo self said about 100k? What do you think about a Netflix engineer making 300k? They'd probably be happy with 500k (though, cost of living, derailment ahead..).
    - phaus 10y ago
      My number's based on cost of living. At $100k, in the area I live in, I have a good standard of middle class living but I still have to work hard to save, go on vacations, and make major purchases. At $200k, I could maintain the same standard of living, easily pay off all of my student debt in about a year (without sacrificing anything), easily buy a house, buy a new car outright after saving excess money for 3-4 months, pay for my kid's college education outright, and save a ton of money for retirement. At $100k, I constantly have to pick and choose which of these things I work on. If I made $200k, living in the same area, I might not be wealthy in the grand scheme of things, but I sure would feel like it. About 70% of the negative stress in my life comes from anxiety about being able to afford everything my family will want and/or need eventually. Interestingly enough, I have already lived through the experience of having my salary double almost overnight. I used to live in a relatively low-cost area, but I was still getting paid about $25k below market. Then I moved to a higher-cost area, and took a more advanced position at a company that paid a little more than market rate. Went from below $50k to just under $100k. The impact on my life was significant. I went from feeling poor and helpless to finally being able to breathe. I used to be depressed and angry all the time because I could barely take care of my family and my household. Now I'm more or less happy.
    - taneq 10y ago
      18-year-old self would be comparing with entry level, rather than senior level, salaries. If you account for both that and inflation, the right question is "how would your 18yo self feel about $45k/y?"
  - obstinate 10y ago
    I used to think that, but now I make $500k and I think you could convince me to work on something I like slightly less well for $700k. Once I achieve financial independence, it will be different, but until then, changes that significantly impact the distance to that goal are motivating. The interesting thing though is that you wouldn't really want to entice me that way, because I'd guess you'd get a worse product out of me. So there are different types of motivation that are important. The motivation to make a choice, versus the motivation to work hard on a choice.
    - jimbokun 10y ago
      If you're making $500k and not financially independent, or about to be very soon, you are doing something wrong, I think.
      - Aeolun 10y ago
        It only makes you independent for chunks of 6 months per month worked. You still have to work some 5-10 years before you are independent for the rest of your life.
        falsedan 10y ago
        People generally refer to that as 'retiring'; financial independence usually means, "don't need to ask parents for small loans/handouts".
        shostack 10y ago
        I thought it meant having enough investments to live off dividends/interest/rent without having to touch your principle such that it continues growing on its own?
        falsedan 10y ago
        I think 'independently wealthy' describes that situation more clearly/less confusingly.
  - jsudhams 10y ago
    Would you now take 200k job but kind of okay project not very interesting? That is what we are talking. BTW, You can make 200k soon depending on how good you are in the security domain
    - phaus 10y ago
      The situation I'm in now is that I'm very good at several aspects of security, but I'm not an rock-star at any of them (although in many ways I feel just a step or two away). In a way, being a jack-of-all trades is very useful for my current role, which involves a lot of incident response type things: network forensics, host-based malware forensics, log analysis, etc. I get great performance reviews in a company full of talent, but its hard to accurately assess yourself (and like many I struggle with impostor syndrome). This year, I'm focusing on getting better at programming and going beyond the basic aspects of reverse engineering. Basically, I'm trying to find a path to specialization in order to progress. I could probably easily land a job making ~50k more than I do now, but I'm planning on attempting to negotiate for a decent raise the next time I get promoted. I like everything else about the company,so if we could come to some kind of an acceptable situation I would love to stay. However, if someone offered me $200k today for a full-time position at a private company, I would almost certainly accept. I can deal with less than ideal or even boring work as long as there's a good work/life balance that lets me keep working on projects at home. And even if the work isn't glamorous, I'm the type of person that enjoys all kinds of work, physical or mental. Before I got into security I did everything from shovel half-rotten fish into buckets for a living to running network cable. As a caveat, if its a government/contracting job, it would probably have to be $300k (which is probably unrealistic). There are aspects of government work that are interesting, but from my experience the negatives almost always outweigh the positives.
  - sedachv 10y ago
    I see $100k USD being thrown around as a large salary in discussions, and compared to the median US household income it is. But people have been using this figure as a convenient anchor point in arguments for decades now, and if you look at inflation, $100k should not be considered a high salary today, and if you are a programmer you should demand more: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US$100000+2017+in+1980+USD http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US$100000+2017+in+1980+... $100,000 today would have been $33,000 in 1980, $53,000 in 1990, $70,000 in 2000, and only $84,000 in 2007. You are totally right about the $200k mark feeling comfortable. $200k is the new $100k.
- strken 10y ago
  There's a point where salary stops meaning increased consumption, and starts meaning increased control - not control in the narrow sense that "Rich vs King" discusses, but in the broader sense of being able to push your ideas. Want to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash.
  - pmoriarty 10y ago
    "Want to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash." That might have been more accurately stated as: "Want to hire people to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash." It's rarely the people with the big money that are doing these things, they're just hiring people and having influence on direction. Sure, they might get credit for being a "visionary" or "innovator", but the people doing the real work rarely make the big bucks (or get much credit, unless they're very lucky). But, in fact, the very people with lots of money who are influencing these developments are themselves influenced: often by people with not nearly as much money -- such as relatively poor authors, or other "real" visionaries. So you could also say something like: "Want to have some really significant influence on the world? Write a book." It doesn't take a lot of money, and it's not certain that you will be influential, but if you have some really great ideas you might stand more of a chance of changing the world by writing than by trying to compete with the likes of Gates or Musk for the really big bucks. Of course, lots of other cultural artifacts have also been hugely influential. How much of our modern world has been influenced by Star Wars or Star Trek, or by mathematics -- which really makes all those Mars journeys possible in the first place. How many people have been influenced and inspired by music? All of the arts really feed in to and greatly influence each other. So there are plenty of ways to influence and change the world apart from being rich -- and many of them are even more effective, as these other means could influence many generations of people -- poor, rich, and otherwise.
    - strken 10y ago
- st3v3r 10y ago
  I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that some 85% of people reading this do not have 1 million in the bank, let alone a few. So that's just worrying about a problem that most are never really going to encounter. That being said, motivation is a complex thing, and most people are motivated by many different things at once. Money itself may not be the only motivator, but it's definitely one of them, and an important one. Trying to skimp out on it is a recipe for failure.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
TeMPOraL 10y ago
> Tech companies are usually responsible for creating the turnover they complain about. I see complaining itself as nothing but an act of trying to weasel out of the responsibility. If a company is really hurt by the turnover, it either dies or starts solving the problem - by e.g. paying people more, or reducing the impact of turnover on the business (e.g. by choosing tech stacks so that developers are easily replaceable). Complaining loudly about turnover seems to be done in hope that someone steps in and solves it without the company having to pay for it.

by phaus 10y ago

beat 10y ago

I was strongly influenced in my thinking by Jason Cohen's "Rich vs King" article, he talks about the S-curve of wealth utilization. Once you hit a few million in the bank, you have enough money to fund a reasonably lavish lifestyle, without working, for the rest of your life. At that point, how do you motivate someone?

phaus 10y ago
I make low 6 figures doing network security. If I hit 200k, literally the only thing you could do to motivate me would be to treat me well and give me interesting things to do. Fortunately, my employer already does both of those. I just wish it wasn't almost a requirement to leave in order to get a decent raise. Note: I'm not expecting to make $200k in a technical role as a security analyst any time soon, its just hypothetical.
- softawre 10y ago
  It is also interesting to think your number, 200k, is strictly based on how much you make now. What would your 18yo self said about 100k? What do you think about a Netflix engineer making 300k? They'd probably be happy with 500k (though, cost of living, derailment ahead..).
  - phaus 10y ago
    My number's based on cost of living. At $100k, in the area I live in, I have a good standard of middle class living but I still have to work hard to save, go on vacations, and make major purchases. At $200k, I could maintain the same standard of living, easily pay off all of my student debt in about a year (without sacrificing anything), easily buy a house, buy a new car outright after saving excess money for 3-4 months, pay for my kid's college education outright, and save a ton of money for retirement. At $100k, I constantly have to pick and choose which of these things I work on. If I made $200k, living in the same area, I might not be wealthy in the grand scheme of things, but I sure would feel like it. About 70% of the negative stress in my life comes from anxiety about being able to afford everything my family will want and/or need eventually. Interestingly enough, I have already lived through the experience of having my salary double almost overnight. I used to live in a relatively low-cost area, but I was still getting paid about $25k below market. Then I moved to a higher-cost area, and took a more advanced position at a company that paid a little more than market rate. Went from below $50k to just under $100k. The impact on my life was significant. I went from feeling poor and helpless to finally being able to breathe. I used to be depressed and angry all the time because I could barely take care of my family and my household. Now I'm more or less happy.
  - taneq 10y ago
    18-year-old self would be comparing with entry level, rather than senior level, salaries. If you account for both that and inflation, the right question is "how would your 18yo self feel about $45k/y?"
- obstinate 10y ago
  I used to think that, but now I make $500k and I think you could convince me to work on something I like slightly less well for $700k. Once I achieve financial independence, it will be different, but until then, changes that significantly impact the distance to that goal are motivating. The interesting thing though is that you wouldn't really want to entice me that way, because I'd guess you'd get a worse product out of me. So there are different types of motivation that are important. The motivation to make a choice, versus the motivation to work hard on a choice.
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    If you're making $500k and not financially independent, or about to be very soon, you are doing something wrong, I think.
    - Aeolun 10y ago
      It only makes you independent for chunks of 6 months per month worked. You still have to work some 5-10 years before you are independent for the rest of your life.
      - falsedan 10y ago
        People generally refer to that as 'retiring'; financial independence usually means, "don't need to ask parents for small loans/handouts".
        shostack 10y ago
        I thought it meant having enough investments to live off dividends/interest/rent without having to touch your principle such that it continues growing on its own?
        falsedan 10y ago
        I think 'independently wealthy' describes that situation more clearly/less confusingly.
- jsudhams 10y ago
  Would you now take 200k job but kind of okay project not very interesting? That is what we are talking. BTW, You can make 200k soon depending on how good you are in the security domain
  - phaus 10y ago
    The situation I'm in now is that I'm very good at several aspects of security, but I'm not an rock-star at any of them (although in many ways I feel just a step or two away). In a way, being a jack-of-all trades is very useful for my current role, which involves a lot of incident response type things: network forensics, host-based malware forensics, log analysis, etc. I get great performance reviews in a company full of talent, but its hard to accurately assess yourself (and like many I struggle with impostor syndrome). This year, I'm focusing on getting better at programming and going beyond the basic aspects of reverse engineering. Basically, I'm trying to find a path to specialization in order to progress. I could probably easily land a job making ~50k more than I do now, but I'm planning on attempting to negotiate for a decent raise the next time I get promoted. I like everything else about the company,so if we could come to some kind of an acceptable situation I would love to stay. However, if someone offered me $200k today for a full-time position at a private company, I would almost certainly accept. I can deal with less than ideal or even boring work as long as there's a good work/life balance that lets me keep working on projects at home. And even if the work isn't glamorous, I'm the type of person that enjoys all kinds of work, physical or mental. Before I got into security I did everything from shovel half-rotten fish into buckets for a living to running network cable. As a caveat, if its a government/contracting job, it would probably have to be $300k (which is probably unrealistic). There are aspects of government work that are interesting, but from my experience the negatives almost always outweigh the positives.
- sedachv 10y ago
  I see $100k USD being thrown around as a large salary in discussions, and compared to the median US household income it is. But people have been using this figure as a convenient anchor point in arguments for decades now, and if you look at inflation, $100k should not be considered a high salary today, and if you are a programmer you should demand more: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US$100000+2017+in+1980+USD http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US$100000+2017+in+1980+... $100,000 today would have been $33,000 in 1980, $53,000 in 1990, $70,000 in 2000, and only $84,000 in 2007. You are totally right about the $200k mark feeling comfortable. $200k is the new $100k.
strken 10y ago
There's a point where salary stops meaning increased consumption, and starts meaning increased control - not control in the narrow sense that "Rich vs King" discusses, but in the broader sense of being able to push your ideas. Want to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  "Want to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash." That might have been more accurately stated as: "Want to hire people to cure polio, go to Mars, put LED lighting in every home in Africa, fund research into fusion reactors, build flying cars, or push VR into the mainstream? You'd better have some cash." It's rarely the people with the big money that are doing these things, they're just hiring people and having influence on direction. Sure, they might get credit for being a "visionary" or "innovator", but the people doing the real work rarely make the big bucks (or get much credit, unless they're very lucky). But, in fact, the very people with lots of money who are influencing these developments are themselves influenced: often by people with not nearly as much money -- such as relatively poor authors, or other "real" visionaries. So you could also say something like: "Want to have some really significant influence on the world? Write a book." It doesn't take a lot of money, and it's not certain that you will be influential, but if you have some really great ideas you might stand more of a chance of changing the world by writing than by trying to compete with the likes of Gates or Musk for the really big bucks. Of course, lots of other cultural artifacts have also been hugely influential. How much of our modern world has been influenced by Star Wars or Star Trek, or by mathematics -- which really makes all those Mars journeys possible in the first place. How many people have been influenced and inspired by music? All of the arts really feed in to and greatly influence each other. So there are plenty of ways to influence and change the world apart from being rich -- and many of them are even more effective, as these other means could influence many generations of people -- poor, rich, and otherwise.
  - strken 10y ago
st3v3r 10y ago
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that some 85% of people reading this do not have 1 million in the bank, let alone a few. So that's just worrying about a problem that most are never really going to encounter. That being said, motivation is a complex thing, and most people are motivated by many different things at once. Money itself may not be the only motivator, but it's definitely one of them, and an important one. Trying to skimp out on it is a recipe for failure.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

TeMPOraL 10y ago

> Tech companies are usually responsible for creating the turnover they complain about. I see complaining itself as nothing but an act of trying to weasel out of the responsibility. If a company is really hurt by the turnover, it either dies or starts solving the problem - by e.g. paying people more, or reducing the impact of turnover on the business (e.g. by choosing tech stacks so that developers are easily replaceable). Complaining loudly about turnover seems to be done in hope that someone steps in and solves it without the company having to pay for it.