3 ms·

Product intuition, engineering talent, really talent of any kind, motivation, alignment, like nothing important can be solved with money.

mcmcmc 2y ago
All the things you listed can be solved with sufficient payroll and recruiting budget.
- ltbarcly3 2y ago
  You can hire as many people as you want, but you can't hire talent with money, just people who claim to have talent. No amount of money makes you able to tell the difference. If you don't believe me you really should never try to start a business.
  - mcmcmc 2y ago
    Enough payroll lets you hire and fire fast until you have the right people. More money means you have to worry less about sunk costs from bad hires that make it through the recruiting process.
    - ltbarcly3 2y ago
      By the time you realize someone is a fraud you've disrupted your progress for months compared to where you should have been, and firing people is not free in terms of culture and the psychological health of your other employees and their families. If you have to fire someone because they don't fit the profile you actually want you have severely fucked up. That's IF you can tell. Most people can't tell who is talented and who is not even after hiring them. For every highly skilled / talented person there are 500 that think they are and have a resume that is consistent with that, but they are still trash. If you are hiring/firing this much of the time your company culture will become a stalinist purge mentality where people have no trust or loyalty in each other and act primarily out of survival. That means they will withhold help from each other and even sabotage things to ensure they aren't the one the bear catches that month. Maybe you have only ever worked at terrible giant tech companies or come from a culture where this is normal, but it's literally death. The culture you really really want to have is a group of genius misfits on a mission from god, very hard to join but steadfastly loyal to each other, and willing to pour their entire life into achieving their mission. I think this is a theoretical exercise for you, you should revisit this after you have some experience.
mooreds 2y ago
I mean, engineers and other talent need to eat, right? So some level of money is important to be able to recruit people. But other than that, agree that motivation is not something you can buy.
- ltbarcly3 2y ago
  You can pay charlatans just as much as you can talented engineers, and telling the difference requires a lot of ability.
  - mooreds 2y ago
    Yeah, the problem of hiring experts when you aren't one is common. Happens with lawyers, real estate agents, financial planners, and more. Common remedies: - reference checks. If my friend has had a good experience, I'm likely to as well. - credentialing. If the AMA says this doctor is licensed, they are probably okay. - rely on another expert. This is why when I was interviewing for a startup CTO position, the CEO had me talk to someone technical. It's not easy, but is possible.
    - ltbarcly3 2y ago
      Those things are possible (in a limited way), but a big bucket of money doesn't make you better at it, which is the context here. Checking with another expert is just the same problem with extra steps. It's very common that someone has a stunning reputation and after a few minutes of chatting with them you realize they are a fraud (if you have expertise in the thing you are talking about). So the CEO's 'technical friend' is as likely to be a fraud as not, if not more likely as frauds are very likely to cluster around people who are making decisions that could lead to checks being written, and CEO's are much more likely to be sales-focused extroverts and we are all biased towards trusting people like ourselves (and an extroverted salesperson has a ton of overlap in terms list of characteristics with a con man). I've been in this industry a long time, I have seen plenty of 'technical leaders' who were complete and total charlatans, up to the point where their resume was very obviously fabricated (companies that never existed, job roles that never existed, the websites for the companies on their resume being fake and obviously created by them). It didn't seem to harm their career much if at all, and their bosses never once caught them out for their incompetence, even after years.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
No references ATM, but I believe studies show that the correlation between money and motivation is very large up until you reach the point an employee considers it a fair wage. After that point, the correlation is small. Of course, what the employee considers a fair wage and what the employer considers a fair wage can diverge significantly.
- RhysU 2y ago
  Fun. I can imagine motivation-money curves would look a lot like stress-strain curves [1]. A "fair wage" might be akin to the yield strength. Work hardening under cyclic loading probably is similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve
- ltbarcly3 2y ago
  At a startup you are paid primarily via stock options, so if you can't get motivated for the potential millions and millions of dollars they will be worth no amount of cash is going to do it.

mcmcmc 2y ago

All the things you listed can be solved with sufficient payroll and recruiting budget.

ltbarcly3 2y ago
You can hire as many people as you want, but you can't hire talent with money, just people who claim to have talent. No amount of money makes you able to tell the difference. If you don't believe me you really should never try to start a business.
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  Enough payroll lets you hire and fire fast until you have the right people. More money means you have to worry less about sunk costs from bad hires that make it through the recruiting process.
  - ltbarcly3 2y ago
    By the time you realize someone is a fraud you've disrupted your progress for months compared to where you should have been, and firing people is not free in terms of culture and the psychological health of your other employees and their families. If you have to fire someone because they don't fit the profile you actually want you have severely fucked up. That's IF you can tell. Most people can't tell who is talented and who is not even after hiring them. For every highly skilled / talented person there are 500 that think they are and have a resume that is consistent with that, but they are still trash. If you are hiring/firing this much of the time your company culture will become a stalinist purge mentality where people have no trust or loyalty in each other and act primarily out of survival. That means they will withhold help from each other and even sabotage things to ensure they aren't the one the bear catches that month. Maybe you have only ever worked at terrible giant tech companies or come from a culture where this is normal, but it's literally death. The culture you really really want to have is a group of genius misfits on a mission from god, very hard to join but steadfastly loyal to each other, and willing to pour their entire life into achieving their mission. I think this is a theoretical exercise for you, you should revisit this after you have some experience.

mooreds 2y ago

I mean, engineers and other talent need to eat, right? So some level of money is important to be able to recruit people. But other than that, agree that motivation is not something you can buy.

ltbarcly3 2y ago
You can pay charlatans just as much as you can talented engineers, and telling the difference requires a lot of ability.
- mooreds 2y ago
  Yeah, the problem of hiring experts when you aren't one is common. Happens with lawyers, real estate agents, financial planners, and more. Common remedies: - reference checks. If my friend has had a good experience, I'm likely to as well. - credentialing. If the AMA says this doctor is licensed, they are probably okay. - rely on another expert. This is why when I was interviewing for a startup CTO position, the CEO had me talk to someone technical. It's not easy, but is possible.
  - ltbarcly3 2y ago
    Those things are possible (in a limited way), but a big bucket of money doesn't make you better at it, which is the context here. Checking with another expert is just the same problem with extra steps. It's very common that someone has a stunning reputation and after a few minutes of chatting with them you realize they are a fraud (if you have expertise in the thing you are talking about). So the CEO's 'technical friend' is as likely to be a fraud as not, if not more likely as frauds are very likely to cluster around people who are making decisions that could lead to checks being written, and CEO's are much more likely to be sales-focused extroverts and we are all biased towards trusting people like ourselves (and an extroverted salesperson has a ton of overlap in terms list of characteristics with a con man). I've been in this industry a long time, I have seen plenty of 'technical leaders' who were complete and total charlatans, up to the point where their resume was very obviously fabricated (companies that never existed, job roles that never existed, the websites for the companies on their resume being fake and obviously created by them). It didn't seem to harm their career much if at all, and their bosses never once caught them out for their incompetence, even after years.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

No references ATM, but I believe studies show that the correlation between money and motivation is very large up until you reach the point an employee considers it a fair wage. After that point, the correlation is small. Of course, what the employee considers a fair wage and what the employer considers a fair wage can diverge significantly.

RhysU 2y ago
Fun. I can imagine motivation-money curves would look a lot like stress-strain curves [1]. A "fair wage" might be akin to the yield strength. Work hardening under cyclic loading probably is similar. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress%E2%80%93strain_curve
ltbarcly3 2y ago
At a startup you are paid primarily via stock options, so if you can't get motivated for the potential millions and millions of dollars they will be worth no amount of cash is going to do it.