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The problem with money motivation is that it lasts short term. I speak for myself but whenever I was given a raise it kept me going for 6 months at the most. Po

The problem with money motivation is that it lasts short term. I speak for myself but whenever I was given a raise it kept me going for 6 months at the most. Post that it felt like normal but good and challenging (yes they are different) work kept me going for much longer (1-2 yrs). Now the problem with 6 months is that the engineers typically leave after launch once their target of raise and promotion is met and the company suffers to varying degree. In the long run this may or may not matter depending upon external factors - for ex. cloud services kick-off helped Amazon a lot so even if there are significant number of engineers pulling up 60-80% it won't matter that much. Or if you are already a leader by long distance (Google, Microsoft and IBM earlier).

humanrebar 9y ago
> Now the problem with 6 months is that the engineers typically leave after launch once their target of raise and promotion is met and the company suffers to varying degree. I think the article has it right when it referenced the importance of "the ability to reward engineering work that had little visible outcome". Rewarding mostly shipping (or launching) seems to be broken in particular, I'm not sure rewards themselves are entirely ineffective.
- paulryanrogers 9y ago
  > Rewarding mostly shipping (or launching) seems to be broken in particular I've fallen into this kitchen-sink trap in the past. Though I think it's tough for stakeholders to appreciate the invisibles like security or reliably until those get bad enough to cross a critical threshold.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    Agreed. Though in my experience they appreciate it in general terms. They just have a hard time prioritizing and rewarding particular behavior. The concrete tradeoffs like "she decided not to ship three months ago in order to do the security audit" still need to be evaluated.
harlanji 9y ago
I’m sick of this. I came here ready to elevate my career (network=net worth) but all I have to show for it is a resume full of craters and a black book full of people who wish me unwell (emptying). A few good connections in tech, but I mostly stay for general BA life and my community is nice. My resume would be fine if I “played ball” aka. was an opportunistic smiling liar. Back in my old market we could give 4 week notice and say we were interviewing around, here they treat you like shit and terminate when you express need for rest/thoughts of change. I understand it from a fear/risk point of view, unsure how to change that besides refusing to play (eg. starting the next unicorn out of pocket as a B corp, making investors take a whiteboard exam before having a phone call with leadership :). Money isn’t a motivator, contrary it makes the treadmill go faster if we aren’t anticipating how to make it work for us rather than help us consume ourselves in desire and lust. A steady business with an understandable revenue stream, imagine the anxieties we wouldn’t have.
- leroy_masochist 9y ago
  > making investors take a whiteboard exam before having a phone call with leadership :) Are you saying that an investor who can, say, write out FizzBuzz in JS would be a better partner? Or are we talking about a different set of whiteboard-able skills?

humanrebar 9y ago

> Now the problem with 6 months is that the engineers typically leave after launch once their target of raise and promotion is met and the company suffers to varying degree. I think the article has it right when it referenced the importance of "the ability to reward engineering work that had little visible outcome". Rewarding mostly shipping (or launching) seems to be broken in particular, I'm not sure rewards themselves are entirely ineffective.

paulryanrogers 9y ago
> Rewarding mostly shipping (or launching) seems to be broken in particular I've fallen into this kitchen-sink trap in the past. Though I think it's tough for stakeholders to appreciate the invisibles like security or reliably until those get bad enough to cross a critical threshold.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Agreed. Though in my experience they appreciate it in general terms. They just have a hard time prioritizing and rewarding particular behavior. The concrete tradeoffs like "she decided not to ship three months ago in order to do the security audit" still need to be evaluated.

harlanji 9y ago

I’m sick of this. I came here ready to elevate my career (network=net worth) but all I have to show for it is a resume full of craters and a black book full of people who wish me unwell (emptying). A few good connections in tech, but I mostly stay for general BA life and my community is nice. My resume would be fine if I “played ball” aka. was an opportunistic smiling liar. Back in my old market we could give 4 week notice and say we were interviewing around, here they treat you like shit and terminate when you express need for rest/thoughts of change. I understand it from a fear/risk point of view, unsure how to change that besides refusing to play (eg. starting the next unicorn out of pocket as a B corp, making investors take a whiteboard exam before having a phone call with leadership :). Money isn’t a motivator, contrary it makes the treadmill go faster if we aren’t anticipating how to make it work for us rather than help us consume ourselves in desire and lust. A steady business with an understandable revenue stream, imagine the anxieties we wouldn’t have.

leroy_masochist 9y ago
> making investors take a whiteboard exam before having a phone call with leadership :) Are you saying that an investor who can, say, write out FizzBuzz in JS would be a better partner? Or are we talking about a different set of whiteboard-able skills?