Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts • Hacker News Board

Re: Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts

#31

Post by galoisgirl » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

serjester wrote: post #20

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…

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.

Re: Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts

#32

Post by register » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

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.

Re: Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts

#33

Post by Terretta » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 8:15 PM UTC

register wrote: post #32

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.

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.

Re: Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts

#34

Post by karmakaze » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #4

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 sep…

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.