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Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right? Minimum wage, no benefits and 80hr weeks are required.

pavel_lishin 16y ago
If the job was something he absolutely loved doing, that might be an attractive offer. What if the job was laying in a park, testing out the effectiveness of new marijuana strains?
- johngalt 16y ago
  It's not my point that there are no other motivations, merely that money is a primary one.
  - khafra 16y ago
    I think we can all agree that your point was not well supported. By the way, how much do you get paid for participating in HN? Your average karma is 4.4; by the community's judgement, you put some good work into commenting.
j_baker 16y ago
Oh, so we're playing the reductio ad absurdum game now? Ok, I'll bite. I'll pay you $1 million to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wait, what was that? Money can't motivate you to do that?
- johngalt 16y ago
  Gladly. New meaning to the term golden parachute. Additionally I bet you'd find that there are people who would take that offer even if it meant their certain death. Fyi, reductio ad absurdum is a valid method of argument. I imagine I'd get a lot more applicants applying to my job post if I paid $1million vs. minimum wage. You may say money is a terrible motivator, but people will go through all sorts of horrible things for very small amounts of it.
  - j_baker 16y ago
    Reductio ad absurdum is only valid if the proposition is a binary true or false proposition. This question involves a matter of degree, not a binary true or false. Also, it's important to note that if you posted the job for $1 million you'd get a lot of applicants, but they wouldn't be happy or last very long. It turns out that there is such thing as paying someone too much. The reason being that money is a form of external motivation. Too much external motivation decreases intrinsic motivation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_motivation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrin...
mikeklaas 16y ago
Yes! If it is for two years and I get a master's degree at the end of it. (Okay, it wasn't quite 80hr-weeks, and I earned slightly more than minimum wage, but...)
coffeeaddicted 16y ago
You wouldn't get me to work 80hr weeks even if you offered me a lot of money. Money wouldn't be enough of a motivation to do that.But I did 80hr weeks for minimum wage already because of other benefits (keeping rights on the source-code which I wrote in that time).
praptak 16y ago
"Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right?" You failed to provide any alternate motivation. Some people actually take conditions similar to ones you described but they work in the greatest labs on the most interesting problems of contemporary science. They also usually get a phd after a few years. There is also no implication from "Money is a poor motivator for me" to "80 hr week is not a demotivator for me".

If the job was something he absolutely loved doing, that might be an attractive offer. What if the job was laying in a park, testing out the effectiveness of new marijuana strains?

johngalt 16y ago
It's not my point that there are no other motivations, merely that money is a primary one.
- khafra 16y ago
  I think we can all agree that your point was not well supported. By the way, how much do you get paid for participating in HN? Your average karma is 4.4; by the community's judgement, you put some good work into commenting.

j_baker 16y ago

Oh, so we're playing the reductio ad absurdum game now? Ok, I'll bite. I'll pay you $1 million to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Wait, what was that? Money can't motivate you to do that?

johngalt 16y ago
Gladly. New meaning to the term golden parachute. Additionally I bet you'd find that there are people who would take that offer even if it meant their certain death. Fyi, reductio ad absurdum is a valid method of argument. I imagine I'd get a lot more applicants applying to my job post if I paid $1million vs. minimum wage. You may say money is a terrible motivator, but people will go through all sorts of horrible things for very small amounts of it.
- j_baker 16y ago
  Reductio ad absurdum is only valid if the proposition is a binary true or false proposition. This question involves a matter of degree, not a binary true or false. Also, it's important to note that if you posted the job for $1 million you'd get a lot of applicants, but they wouldn't be happy or last very long. It turns out that there is such thing as paying someone too much. The reason being that money is a form of external motivation. Too much external motivation decreases intrinsic motivation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrinsic_motivation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation#Intrinsic_and_extrin...

mikeklaas 16y ago

Yes! If it is for two years and I get a master's degree at the end of it. (Okay, it wasn't quite 80hr-weeks, and I earned slightly more than minimum wage, but...)

coffeeaddicted 16y ago

You wouldn't get me to work 80hr weeks even if you offered me a lot of money. Money wouldn't be enough of a motivation to do that.But I did 80hr weeks for minimum wage already because of other benefits (keeping rights on the source-code which I wrote in that time).

praptak 16y ago

"Can I hire you? Money doesn't motivate you right?" You failed to provide any alternate motivation. Some people actually take conditions similar to ones you described but they work in the greatest labs on the most interesting problems of contemporary science. They also usually get a phd after a few years. There is also no implication from "Money is a poor motivator for me" to "80 hr week is not a demotivator for me".