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The 10-minute talk at the end mentioned a prerequisite, almost as an aside, to the learning on motivation: pay people enough to take the issue of money off the
by mmt 16y ago
The 10-minute talk at the end mentioned a prerequisite, almost as an aside, to the learning on motivation: pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table.
My experience is that it is the very rare company, even among startups, that thinks of compensation in this way or otherwise meets the prereq. It explains the somewhat extreme sentiment I've seen here on HN of "screw you. pay me." on the topic of motivation and engagement.
When what I do[1] can easily save twice my salary, as a side effect, it's surreal to be negotiating an extra 10%. These days, I just quote an acceptable salary range when asked, despite the negotiating disadvantage. More often than not, it succeeds in filtering out wastes of my time.
To some degree, perhaps not fully consciously, it's also been a test. Assuming the initial need filter is passed, how hard my reasonable asking price is pushed back on is a measure of how much my contribution will be valued.
[1] Assuming I'm actually needed, and not just wanted, perhaps as overkill.
- dpritchett 16y agoThanks for pointing this out. I found a related post on Pink's blog: http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/01/raises-do-matter http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/01/raises-do-matter
- aditya 16y agoIt is a tough choice, especially when you're pre-VC... since at that point you have a few hundred thousand, and you want to build a solid small team while keeping your runway long. Once you've raised a Series A round, though, then you should be going for quality over quantity and paying people what they want (within reason). Since at that point it still is about runway but you probably have significantly more cash to play with (a couple of million dollars). I don't think being too cheap at that point makes a lot of sense. It is interesting that pg and a lot of YC startups are taught to be cheap, but there's a fine line between cheapness and efficient use of capital.