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Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

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Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#21

Post by agentultra »

You don’t. More than twenty years in and I’m certain that “passion” and “purpose” are gilded carrots used to misinform and sway the naive when used by capitalists. You won’t find purpose in a capitalist society.

You’re more likely to find a decent trade of your time, skills, and social connections for money, stock options, bonuses, and a benefits plan.

Treat it like a mercenary and you’ll do okay.

Now that isn’t to say that you, an individual, cannot find you own passions and purpose. These come from within and you won’t find them validated in a capital market. Know what they are and try to align your opportunities with them when you can and you can go pretty far.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#22

Post by devkyle »

peruvian wrote: post #16

Finding your sense of purpose in your work is bad, IMO, unless you own the company or have a similar position. I don't want my self-worth to be tied to an employer or market that can get rid of me any time. It's just a job. At best, I work in places that aren't morally against my values.

I completely agree, find your purpose outside of work. This can take many forms from spiritual to practical but I firmly believe you need to find a reason for existing outside of your job.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#23

Post by burntoutfire »

mlac wrote: post #18

Profit doesn’t exist if you’re not fulfilling customer needs.* Find a need that people pay for that to find fulfilling and go support it. *In theory. In practice, there are all types of companies that exist due to regulatory quirks / that customers are forced to interact with. If you flip it, technically people are forced to work with the government whether they like it or not and regardless of the quality of service…

Unfortunately, people "need" a lot of drugs, cigarettes, booze, mindless and/or harmful distractions and entertainment etc. A small fraction of our economy is serving people's real needs, while the rest is serving wants, which are quite often not good for the people who want them.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#24

Post by mlac »

garyfirestorm wrote: post #9

To think about it, govt is supposed to be profitable while providing the services. Private is no different. You have to be better and cheaper than your competition.

Government is not supposed to be profitable. It is supposed to minimize cost of meeting needs that the voters agree should be provided by the government.

“Profit” in the public sector would indicate that too much tax money was collected, because there shouldn’t be a surplus at the end of a year. There shouldn’t be a deficit either, but that’s a different story.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#25

Post by mywacaday »

Beware of faraway fields, If you find bureaucracy and legacy tech difficult to deal with stay away from any regulated industries like pharma or finance. E.g. try writing a report why your team widened a column on a controlled excel sheet that could no longer show all the values without raising both types of change control, apparently one is not enough then you have to write the report and go to a meeting to explain it.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#26

Post by nickd2001 »

Green tech / energy efficiency is a good part of private sector to work in in terms of purpose. Or maybe you could find a different part of the government? Maybe other parts are less beaurocratic, more modern tech, or a least less resistant to change? Having worked in both public and private sector, I far prefer the public sector. But you have to be in a decent bit of it of course....

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#27

Post by aix1 »

> Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

I work on improving the treatment of cancer through the application of deep learning. I am employed by a FAANG and work very closely with several leading nonprofit academic medical centres. Our primary driver is real-world patient impact (rather than, say, revenue or just academic publications).

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of downsides to working in this space but lacking a sense of purpose isn't one of them (for me).

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#28

Post by martneumann »

Honestly? It's little more than the better pay for me. I'm generally a conscious person with politics based on empathy and equality, and I have the same thoughts you have, but I have never worked in the public sector due to low salaries compared to the private sector.

I don't lie to myself, either. What I create is not making the world a better place by much at all. I'm making industry software that helps create products. Nothing more, nothing less. I steer clear of miltech or creating software for police or secret services, but apart from that, all it does is create value for some shareholders somewhere while pumping out products that are probably unnecessary and wasteful.

It's an interior conflict that does not go away, and I won't say I have resolved any of it for me. I know that I'm not contributing to saving the world, and it sucks. But I'm also not really in a position to change that. Furthermore, I'm not in a field where governments usually look for talent, and I do enjoy the freedom of creating my own systems with the architecture I prefer and not being constrained by the tight requirements of gov systems.

The little purpose I do find is in creating quality software that kind of makes stuff more efficient and by extension, helps progress towards a more sustainable future with less manual labor. But, in a way, that's what everyone on Earth does, so it's not much.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#29

Post by jplr8922 »

In my experience, the public VS private debate is a false dichotomy. Here is why :

- What influences your day to day experience is the size of the firm for which you work. Big gov and big corp have much more in common than a startup and a small charity group. Think about how the abundance of ressources, staff, speed of change, stability and reputation management will affect your job. Big firms often have two employees for the same role (in case one of them goes away), while small firm often have two roles for the same employee.

- For most people, ''vision'' is a buzzword. By construction, it should come out of your imagination ; it is a desired change on actual reality. This is why vision jobs are less secure than 'pragmatic' jobs. Sense of purpose is an experience where your action are aligned with your vision ; you understand how your work builds the vision. It gives fire in the belly!

- Money being a lag indicator of the state of affairs, profit or security seeking people (which are the same thing with a different name) often end up in big organizations. People with a strong sense of purpose would rather want to join a small group with an non-established business model which aims to change the world.

In other words :

Profit & Security => Established & working business model => big organization => hierarchy with redundance => low sense of purpose

Financial risk => Unproven business model => small firm => too much jobs for few people => high sense of purpose.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find your sense of purpose working in the private sector?

#30

Post by it_does_follow »

I had a similar transition from public -> private, but much earlier in my career.

My advice is to find meaning outside of work, and then go work in the private sector.

One of the things I miss the most about public sector work was you can actually spend time worrying about what's the "good" thing to do, rather than just optimizing a KPI. However, in practice I saw what it sounds like you are seeing now: you don't really serve the public you serve the bureaucracy.

At this point in my career I'm making close to triple what I would have if I stayed in the public sector, and my work life balance is better than it was back then. This means that I have time to work on projects and things I find meaningful and actively contribute to communities I care about. Ultimately I have a bigger impact on people's lives with extra income and free time than I did when I was supposedly working full time to help people.

One caveat: try not to work for any direct to consumer companies, especially startups. It's okay if private sector work isn't meaningful, but when you are actively working to rip people off while your PM cheers about how you're making the world a better place, it feels gross. B2B, in my experience, tends to have less repulsive practices.

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