6 ms·

Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts

60 points by adrian_mrd 6y ago

jonahbenton 6y ago
This is early 2019. Different world. There is so little need for stories of overprivilege right now, even for this audience.
- Supermancho 6y ago
  The nunber of narcissists that need this kind of attention - I made money and I gave it all up is reasonable, given the number of software devs in the world, but the visibility of their identically inane stories, amounts to noise. Give me the link to this blogspam along with the success story (of what they ended up doing 5 years later) and it might hold my interest.
  - lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
    Especially since, a year later, the answer seems to be "selling how to build a Twitter following" self help videos. [0] This is just someone who desperately needs to justify why he retired early (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you've got the cash and wish to live that sort of lifestyle, but there's no need to wrap it all up in some pseudo-psychology about motivation) . [0] https://danielvassallo.com/#doing https://danielvassallo.com/#doing
    - langitbiru 6y ago
      Right now he is also working a part-time job as a head of product in Gumroad (working 10 hours per week). https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322?s=08 https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322?s=08
- m0llusk 6y ago
  True enough, but this is about the meaninglessness of privilege. The author went to where the grass was provably greener. And it ended up being a valueless delusion. So now it is time for something different. This sounds more similar to current stories of desperation than different.
  - P_I_Staker 6y ago
    In fairness, it ended with being paid obscene amounts of money. Lost of people consider life a valueless delusion. For most people life is a frustrating grind, and there was never any light at the end of the tunnel. So there never was any delusion of living a meaningful life. Plus they have no money either. The reality that much of the HN crowd has to come to terms with is that you'll probably never find your passion project. Most people don't, and if they do, it's a fleeting thing that only last a couple years. Otherwise we're here to make money and live as comfortably as possible. That means valuing the right mix of boundaries and compensation. It's much better to focus on living meaningful lives, our relationships, and make best use of the free time we have.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    I'm not getting the idea that privilege is meaningless from that story. On the contrary, for someone to honestly believe and state without any trace of irony that they are starting from nothing with their own bare hands with 15k monthly expenses and more than a million in savings means that privilege is hugely meaningful and significant as it allows people to live in completely different realities.
- jaxn 6y ago
  Different world in that the average person at HN now reads this similar to how the average person in general would have read it in 2019. This article was no less tone-deaf in 2019.
known 6y ago
Reiss, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University , argues that a diverse range of human motivations can't be forced into these categories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. https://archive.is/57CX https://archive.is/57CX
- ropeladder 6y ago
  Thanks for posting this! I had read an article by him a while ago and found it pretty persuasive (or rather that it supported prior intuitions), but couldn't find it again when I wanted to come back to it.
jan_Inkepa 6y ago
Let me introduce you to my friend burnout. Even doing what you love and assumed you were intrinsically motived to do you can have a change of heart. Lots of passionate but overworked game-developers get burned out/disillusioned and go off to employers that don't demand both body and soul for the price of doing the work of their dreams. edit: I realize the article focusses more on freedom, which might be seen as a separate issue to Games-Industry crunch, but some newly independent game developers will be surprised to learn that how their evil manager used to mistreat them can't hold a candle to what they'll do to themselves... It's not all doom and gloom, but it's not always all roses either. And with this being a more-than-usually rough year for many people, the downsides are more at the front of my mind right now than the (many and tremendous) upsides.
- karmakaze 6y ago
  Yeah, I think game dev is perhaps on one extreme of a scale. One can be highly intrinsically motivated but at the same time externally demotivated. I originally wanted to be in 8/16 bit game dev and it might have been alright at that time but glad not to be in it now, except as a recreational activity.
throw1234651234 6y ago
Let's just be clear that this article only starts to apply once you have money to live off for the next 5-10 years without working, if then.
lkxijlewlf 6y ago
>Whenever I got promoted, it felt good for a week, and then it was as over. When I first hit $100K income, I would take a peek at my W2 for a few days admiring the six digits, but then it wore off. When I hit $200K, $300K, $400K, and $500K, it was the same thing. I would be delusional to think that earning $1M, or $10M would suddenly make it different. And I feel the same with every other extrinsic reward or material possession. Getting them feels good for a while, but this wears off quickly. Let's not forget that at the 75K they started at, this person was already far beyond what most earners make. Good on this person for making use of their skills and turning it into a lot of money. But this story just doesn't sit well given the year most people have had. My bubble includes people who are truly struggling this year and it pains me so much to see it.
- swyx 6y ago
  do note that this was written in feb 2019 and only randomly submitted by someone else today
  - lkxijlewlf 6y ago
    Excellent point, thank you.
  - P_I_Staker 6y ago
    You're correct and this is a good thing to point out. It's still somewhat worth keeping in mind how well most of us do here. $75k is considered fantastic pay to a huge percentage of the population. Almost "can't even figure out what to spend all them money on" levels, if you don't have expensive tastes (and obviously only in areas with reasonable COL)
- nicoburns 6y ago
  Indeed. I think the key not that extrinsic motivation isn't long-lasting, but that excessively large incomes aren't even (or are only weakly) extrinsically motivating for most people. If the job was enabling them to make ends meet vs. not then no doubt they'd continue to be highly motivated.
29ebJCyy 6y ago
> I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from ~~nothing~~. Good on you for doing your own thing, but I think it's accurate to say you are starting "from nothing". You are starting with lots of things - including 5 years of expenses and a house.
3np 6y ago
I've been performing well by running from my demons for at least a decade now, and here I thought that was normal.
throwaway98797 6y ago
Ain’t bad when you can sell self-realization for a profit.
Stellvertretend 6y ago
Quality presumption effect: 'The use-bounded and utilize-optimized consumer been pulled to that point where they get what they want for expenses they are willing to be priced at' - common sense? (-;
danielpoynter 6y ago
Totally relate. I created web things from age 12 - 30, and I used to check Hacker News throughout the day. Then I saw... another JS framework. Here's a story I wrote: https://www.appliedideals.com/daniel-poynter https://www.appliedideals.com/daniel-poynter But even that story is a few years old. In early 2019 I dove into climate full time, started a nonprofit last spring. Here's that story: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/blog-2020-quarter-3 https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/blog-2020-quarter-3 Intrinsic motivation? Check.
serjester 6y ago
I don't understand why everyone is so fixated on his income. If he was an home builder that went from an apprentice to managing entire teams on large projects I think his argument would still apply - past a certain point financial incentives aren't enough. In the builders case, maybe he'd be writing about getting back to custom, client facing work. I think his essay applies to lots of driven, Type A people that tend to optimize for status - regardless of their field. Personally I find this very relevant.
- galoisgirl 6y ago
  It's not as much about income itself, as it's about safety. When you know you'll be able to pay your bills in the foreseeable future and you have an emergency fund, you can talk how money doesn't bring happiness or motivation. When you're below a safety threshold, barely making ends meet, one car or dental problem from debt, or in debt already, it's a whole different story. Extrinsic motivation will do wonders for you.
Bakary 6y ago
>I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing. I don’t expect to only do things that I like, but it will be on my terms. My target is to cover my family’s expenses before I run out of savings while doing something that intrinsically motivates me This passage was unintentionally hilarious considering his salary range. From lurking on HN over the years, I am under the distinct impression that many tech workers completely lack perspective even as they go for long bouts of introspection.
- bluedino 6y ago
  He has $15k in 'expenses' every month according to a linked blog post in that article
  - pinouchon 6y ago
    Then it's a matter of investing that money wisely for a few years
galoisgirl 6y ago
I have ADHD. My motivation never lasts a day. Good for that dude, but he's quick to generalize his personal experiences.
corytheboyd 6y ago
I feel like this whole article was an excuse to flex their performance and their bank account. Nothing wrong with recognizing your own achievements but making it such a big point of multiple blog posts of yours is a bit sociopathic. I usually love a good post about quitting the corporate gig to chase greener pastures too, but this is definitely too much.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
register 6y ago
This to me sounds insane. Reaching 500K after 5 only years work is out of this world. What kind of impact can a guy make after only 5 years of experience? Can somebody explain to me how things like that can happen? Also this: after 3 years an engineer cannot be consider "senior" at all, at most experienced.
- Terretta 6y ago
  Salary trends were set during 100 years of managerialism science of how to manage toil at scale. It’s likely a mistake to compare impact of manual labor against Archimedes’ Lever. Today’s engineering wages are just beginning to recognize how value of one bit of code, run a billion times, could be insanely valuable by comparison. Wages for software engineers (more than coders or devs) are thought of as “frothy” but in reality still haven’t caught up with the recognition for founders/entrepreneurs/startups who because of that lack of recognition can capture more of that market value (IPO, acquisition, etc.) for themselves. Through time we’re likely to see increasingly selective identification and reward of individuals best suited to turn the job to be done into an automation across industries where digitalization can drive profits.

60 points by adrian_mrd 6y ago

This is early 2019. Different world. There is so little need for stories of overprivilege right now, even for this audience.

Supermancho 6y ago
The nunber of narcissists that need this kind of attention - I made money and I gave it all up is reasonable, given the number of software devs in the world, but the visibility of their identically inane stories, amounts to noise. Give me the link to this blogspam along with the success story (of what they ended up doing 5 years later) and it might hold my interest.
- lordCarbonFiber 6y ago
  Especially since, a year later, the answer seems to be "selling how to build a Twitter following" self help videos. [0] This is just someone who desperately needs to justify why he retired early (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you've got the cash and wish to live that sort of lifestyle, but there's no need to wrap it all up in some pseudo-psychology about motivation) . [0] https://danielvassallo.com/#doing https://danielvassallo.com/#doing
  - langitbiru 6y ago
    Right now he is also working a part-time job as a head of product in Gumroad (working 10 hours per week). https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322?s=08 https://twitter.com/shl/status/1300848723182776322?s=08
m0llusk 6y ago
True enough, but this is about the meaninglessness of privilege. The author went to where the grass was provably greener. And it ended up being a valueless delusion. So now it is time for something different. This sounds more similar to current stories of desperation than different.
- P_I_Staker 6y ago
  In fairness, it ended with being paid obscene amounts of money. Lost of people consider life a valueless delusion. For most people life is a frustrating grind, and there was never any light at the end of the tunnel. So there never was any delusion of living a meaningful life. Plus they have no money either. The reality that much of the HN crowd has to come to terms with is that you'll probably never find your passion project. Most people don't, and if they do, it's a fleeting thing that only last a couple years. Otherwise we're here to make money and live as comfortably as possible. That means valuing the right mix of boundaries and compensation. It's much better to focus on living meaningful lives, our relationships, and make best use of the free time we have.
- Bakary 6y ago
  I'm not getting the idea that privilege is meaningless from that story. On the contrary, for someone to honestly believe and state without any trace of irony that they are starting from nothing with their own bare hands with 15k monthly expenses and more than a million in savings means that privilege is hugely meaningful and significant as it allows people to live in completely different realities.
jaxn 6y ago
Different world in that the average person at HN now reads this similar to how the average person in general would have read it in 2019. This article was no less tone-deaf in 2019.

known 6y ago

Reiss, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University , argues that a diverse range of human motivations can't be forced into these categories of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. https://archive.is/57CX https://archive.is/57CX

ropeladder 6y ago
Thanks for posting this! I had read an article by him a while ago and found it pretty persuasive (or rather that it supported prior intuitions), but couldn't find it again when I wanted to come back to it.

jan_Inkepa 6y ago

Let me introduce you to my friend burnout. Even doing what you love and assumed you were intrinsically motived to do you can have a change of heart. Lots of passionate but overworked game-developers get burned out/disillusioned and go off to employers that don't demand both body and soul for the price of doing the work of their dreams. edit: I realize the article focusses more on freedom, which might be seen as a separate issue to Games-Industry crunch, but some newly independent game developers will be surprised to learn that how their evil manager used to mistreat them can't hold a candle to what they'll do to themselves... It's not all doom and gloom, but it's not always all roses either. And with this being a more-than-usually rough year for many people, the downsides are more at the front of my mind right now than the (many and tremendous) upsides.

karmakaze 6y ago
Yeah, I think game dev is perhaps on one extreme of a scale. One can be highly intrinsically motivated but at the same time externally demotivated. I originally wanted to be in 8/16 bit game dev and it might have been alright at that time but glad not to be in it now, except as a recreational activity.

throw1234651234 6y ago

Let's just be clear that this article only starts to apply once you have money to live off for the next 5-10 years without working, if then.

lkxijlewlf 6y ago

>Whenever I got promoted, it felt good for a week, and then it was as over. When I first hit $100K income, I would take a peek at my W2 for a few days admiring the six digits, but then it wore off. When I hit $200K, $300K, $400K, and $500K, it was the same thing. I would be delusional to think that earning $1M, or $10M would suddenly make it different. And I feel the same with every other extrinsic reward or material possession. Getting them feels good for a while, but this wears off quickly. Let's not forget that at the 75K they started at, this person was already far beyond what most earners make. Good on this person for making use of their skills and turning it into a lot of money. But this story just doesn't sit well given the year most people have had. My bubble includes people who are truly struggling this year and it pains me so much to see it.

swyx 6y ago
do note that this was written in feb 2019 and only randomly submitted by someone else today
- lkxijlewlf 6y ago
  Excellent point, thank you.
- P_I_Staker 6y ago
  You're correct and this is a good thing to point out. It's still somewhat worth keeping in mind how well most of us do here. $75k is considered fantastic pay to a huge percentage of the population. Almost "can't even figure out what to spend all them money on" levels, if you don't have expensive tastes (and obviously only in areas with reasonable COL)
nicoburns 6y ago
Indeed. I think the key not that extrinsic motivation isn't long-lasting, but that excessively large incomes aren't even (or are only weakly) extrinsically motivating for most people. If the job was enabling them to make ends meet vs. not then no doubt they'd continue to be highly motivated.

29ebJCyy 6y ago

> I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from ~~nothing~~. Good on you for doing your own thing, but I think it's accurate to say you are starting "from nothing". You are starting with lots of things - including 5 years of expenses and a house.

3np 6y ago

I've been performing well by running from my demons for at least a decade now, and here I thought that was normal.

throwaway98797 6y ago

Ain’t bad when you can sell self-realization for a profit.

Stellvertretend 6y ago

Quality presumption effect: 'The use-bounded and utilize-optimized consumer been pulled to that point where they get what they want for expenses they are willing to be priced at' - common sense? (-;

danielpoynter 6y ago

Totally relate. I created web things from age 12 - 30, and I used to check Hacker News throughout the day. Then I saw... another JS framework. Here's a story I wrote: https://www.appliedideals.com/daniel-poynter https://www.appliedideals.com/daniel-poynter But even that story is a few years old. In early 2019 I dove into climate full time, started a nonprofit last spring. Here's that story: https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/blog-2020-quarter-3 https://www.carbonneutralindiana.org/blog-2020-quarter-3 Intrinsic motivation? Check.

serjester 6y ago

I don't understand why everyone is so fixated on his income. If he was an home builder that went from an apprentice to managing entire teams on large projects I think his argument would still apply - past a certain point financial incentives aren't enough. In the builders case, maybe he'd be writing about getting back to custom, client facing work. I think his essay applies to lots of driven, Type A people that tend to optimize for status - regardless of their field. Personally I find this very relevant.

galoisgirl 6y ago
It's not as much about income itself, as it's about safety. When you know you'll be able to pay your bills in the foreseeable future and you have an emergency fund, you can talk how money doesn't bring happiness or motivation. When you're below a safety threshold, barely making ends meet, one car or dental problem from debt, or in debt already, it's a whole different story. Extrinsic motivation will do wonders for you.

Bakary 6y ago

>I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing. I don’t expect to only do things that I like, but it will be on my terms. My target is to cover my family’s expenses before I run out of savings while doing something that intrinsically motivates me This passage was unintentionally hilarious considering his salary range. From lurking on HN over the years, I am under the distinct impression that many tech workers completely lack perspective even as they go for long bouts of introspection.

bluedino 6y ago
He has $15k in 'expenses' every month according to a linked blog post in that article
- pinouchon 6y ago
  Then it's a matter of investing that money wisely for a few years

galoisgirl 6y ago

I have ADHD. My motivation never lasts a day. Good for that dude, but he's quick to generalize his personal experiences.

corytheboyd 6y ago

I feel like this whole article was an excuse to flex their performance and their bank account. Nothing wrong with recognizing your own achievements but making it such a big point of multiple blog posts of yours is a bit sociopathic. I usually love a good post about quitting the corporate gig to chase greener pastures too, but this is definitely too much.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

This to me sounds insane. Reaching 500K after 5 only years work is out of this world. What kind of impact can a guy make after only 5 years of experience? Can somebody explain to me how things like that can happen? Also this: after 3 years an engineer cannot be consider "senior" at all, at most experienced.

Terretta 6y ago
Salary trends were set during 100 years of managerialism science of how to manage toil at scale. It’s likely a mistake to compare impact of manual labor against Archimedes’ Lever. Today’s engineering wages are just beginning to recognize how value of one bit of code, run a billion times, could be insanely valuable by comparison. Wages for software engineers (more than coders or devs) are thought of as “frothy” but in reality still haven’t caught up with the recognition for founders/entrepreneurs/startups who because of that lack of recognition can capture more of that market value (IPO, acquisition, etc.) for themselves. Through time we’re likely to see increasingly selective identification and reward of individuals best suited to turn the job to be done into an automation across industries where digitalization can drive profits.