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The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

a16z.com

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Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#41

Post by munk-a »

matz1 wrote: post #36
mc32 wrote: post #6

Yeah, I’d like to see median earnings numbers here. Passion is great for hobbies. Passion should not be an ingredient or path to being a good employee or being a good citizen. Rigor yes, dedication, sure. Passion (I.e. suffering as it were), no, no that is that companies who want to milk you tell you, of managers who want to extract more from you and away from work life balance say. Sorry, but no.

>Passion should not be an ingredient or path to being a good employee or being a good citizen Why ? >Passion (I.e. suffering as it were), If it something you passion about, its not suffering.

According to the google

> Passion noun: 1. strong and barely controllable emotion.

Passion isn't enthusiasm or reliability when people demand passion they aren't demanding a state that can realistically be delivered for 30-40 years, they're insisting that people operate at a level that will quickly burn them out and force other healthy components of their work out.

An employee and employer should have a mutually beneficial relationship where each party adds value to the other. The employer is using labour to produce wealth and the employee is gaining a reliable wage for their labour. The relationship (generally) ends at 5 when the employees go home, demanding more from employees is counterproductive, off-putting and sometimes abusive[1].

1. As a former game developer I can tell you that overtime has effects well beyond that day, these stories are more extreme than mine but here ya go: https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/how-crunch-affects-game...

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#43

Post by munk-a »

undefined3840 wrote: post #13

Selecting a few outliers and calling it a “trend” is ridiculous. Honestly I wish there was a stricter policy on HN for posting corporate content marketing puff pieces. These a16z blog posts do nothing more than hype companies in their portfolio.

Hype... except when their BS is transparent and poorly researched. But hey, at least there are a few interesting discussions spurred on by this non-article.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#44

Post by matz1 »

munk-a wrote: post #41
matz1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Passion should not be an ingredient or path to being a good employee or being a good citizen Why ? >Passion (I.e. suffering as it were), If it something you passion about, its not suffering.

According to the google > Passion noun: 1. strong and barely controllable emotion. Passion isn't enthusiasm or reliability when people demand passion they aren't demanding a state that can realistically be delivered for 30-40 years, they're insisting that people operate at a level that will quickly burn them out and force other healthy components of their work out. An employee and employer should have a mutually bene…

ok fine then enthusiasm or reliability comes from passion.

well it is off putting, feel abusive, surely you will quickly burn out if you don't have passion for it.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#45

Post by munk-a »

matz1 wrote: post #38
cryptica wrote: post #20

We should think about what is going to happen to all those people (let's face it, the vast majority) who are not passionate about anything... Or worse; who are simply not quite passionate enough... Taking into account a competitive global environment with many traditional/productive jobs disappearing and being replaced by a much smaller number of extremely hard-to-get content creator jobs, I don't think it's going to…

Then at least you should keep searching for it until you find it or die. There are virtually unlimited thing you can do in life, its unlikely there is nothing one is passionate about.

Being able to discover and follow your passion requires a stability of life that most people stuck in grindy jobs are deprived of. Yes there are virtually unlimited things and I wish more people had the confidence and financial independence to pursue them - but being stuck in the grind makes it hard to see a way out... hence the abundance of depression in the modern world, most people are the cogs being crushed under the brutal machine, rather than those privileged to work in high margin industries that let them invest in themselves.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#46

Post by matz1 »

munk-a wrote: post #45
matz1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then at least you should keep searching for it until you find it or die. There are virtually unlimited thing you can do in life, its unlikely there is nothing one is passionate about.

Being able to discover and follow your passion requires a stability of life that most people stuck in grindy jobs are deprived of. Yes there are virtually unlimited things and I wish more people had the confidence and financial independence to pursue them - but being stuck in the grind makes it hard to see a way out... hence the abundance of depression in the modern world, most people are the cogs being crushed under…

If you born poor/ugly/whatever doesn't mean you just give up, whatever state you are in you have to keep searching for it.

Sure its can be hard, but there is nothing better you can do other than just keep trying.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#47

Post by claudeganon »

taurath wrote: post #16

They need to talk about the network effect, and where the power is centered here. Hint - its not with the content creators, nor the users. Its the platform. Its the rent-seeking behavior on the part of the platforms that causes every entry in this space to rise when there's investment money, and then fall when they have to start making the money back and implement creator and user unfriendly mechanisms. Then the cont…

As someone who has worked in the arts for over a decade, I see no path forward besides worker ownership of these platforms. Every other arrangement leads to race-to-the-bottom for the labor on these platforms.

Maybe the ongoing collapse of American cities as places that are unaffordable for anyone other that the ultra-wealthy will push software engineers in this direction. The housing crisis in San Francisco alone should demonstrate that class interests of white collar employees are more aligned with those of the workers on the platforms they create then those of their current owners.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#48

Post by toptal »

dclusin wrote: post #31
toptal wrote: post #29

We wrote an article on this topic and we call it The Talent Economy - https://topt.al/kcV6G We believe our arguments are a bit more pointed and speak to the dynamics of the gig economy vs. [name your catchy other economy here].

Link 404s

Fixed.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#49

Post by john_moscow »

I don't think the economy in this segment is changing drastically. Top handful of rockstars, actors, athletes, soccer players, etc were always compensated very well, while the median ones weren't. Not like you can get a Master in Talk Show Hosting degree and get a more or less predictable career path similar to the engineering/medicine degrees.

Come to think of it, the rise of multiple competing content platforms would actually lower the top performers' revenues due to the audience splintering.

Given that A16Z likely holds some stake in the mentioned businesses, I would treat this as simply another piece of marketing material for some upcoming IPOs.

Re: The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

#50

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

john_moscow wrote: post #49

I don't think the economy in this segment is changing drastically. Top handful of rockstars, actors, athletes, soccer players, etc were always compensated very well, while the median ones weren't. Not like you can get a Master in Talk Show Hosting degree and get a more or less predictable career path similar to the engineering/medicine degrees. Come to think of it, the rise of multiple competing content platforms wou…

It's kind of subjective. Decades ago, CEO's made 20:1 compared to workers. That's "compensated very well". Today is 200:1. It's still very well. A whole order of magnitude better.

In developed countries, today's winners win bigger. The losers stagnate. Globally, many have been lifted out of poverty.

The poor in developing countries are doing better. The wealthy are doing better. The middle class is not.

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