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Comment by pandaman | Hacker News Reader

I hear this from liberals all the time, often in more extreme form of "even if only a cent of a million is left there will be motivation to make that million!". But wtf are you so sure? I for one am not looking for a smaller bump in salary at 50% tax already as I don't see how additional effort would pay for itself. I imagine a lot of people don't consider an effort to found startups at this rate too.

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Because the self-made rich don't stop working. Because hugely productive people work on open source. Because hugely productive people work at non-profits. Because hugely productive, active, socially beneficial people spend their lives in poverty working for the benefit of others.

It's a bizarre mind that can simultaneously believe that you need huge rewards to motivate people AND know that 95% of startups fail.

Startup founders I know well (n=20) are intrinsically motivated and only superficially extrinsically motivated. They don't stop once they get "f-u" money. They do the same thing over again, with a nicer car.

I am sorry, I don't see how it follows. Even if such people exists in statistically significant quantities, a lot of people don't work for free at all.

Trying to put in the effort to get a bump in salary is very different from the kind of creation that is the main benefit of startups to society.

To counter your anecdote with another one, if only half of the characterization of Steve Jobs is true, do you really believe the exact amount of potential financial upside was ever really a question for him?

Sure, if the economic environment had been so extremely bad as to make it impossible to make a living off founding Apple it's likely he would have gone somewhere else. But that's a strawman and you know it.

>Trying to put in the effort to get a bump in salary is very different from the kind of creation that is the main benefit of startups to society.

Exactly my point. It's a very small effort comparing to running your business. Even by itself it's not much - reply to a recruiter, have some interviews, change direct deposit, insurance, 401k etc.

>To counter your anecdote with another one, if only half of the characterization of Steve Jobs is true, do you really believe the exact amount of potential financial upside was ever really a question for him?

I am not familiar with Mr. Jobs but seeing how he has been extremely well compensated all his life I see no reason to believe he was not financially motivated.

It's flawed logic because people only look at the reward end of the risk reward equation, even if the reward is potentially still higher nobody would bother instead of just taking a regular low risk job.

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