People see it as more acceptable to make passionate employees do extra: study | Hacker News Reader

People see it as more acceptable to make passionate employees do extra: study

fuqua.duke.edu

190 pointswhack106 comments

Since nobody is actually reading the article, let me sum it up:

In a survey of regular people (not EvilCorp CEOs), "people consider it more legitimate to make passionate employees leave family to work on a weekend, work unpaid, and handle unrelated tasks that were not in the job description."

"This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom."

"Participants read about a Ph.D. student’s working relationship with their graduate advisor. Those who read a scenario in which the student was being exploited – verbally abused and given unreasonable deadlines – rated the student as likely to be more passionate than students who weren’t being exploited."

What this study finds is that regular people, you and me, say that exploiting passionate people and mistreating them is OK. That we're so willing to make compensatory justifications of abuse is not a good sign.

Hopefully the title change will encourage fewer knee jerk comments.

So that’s why companies want “passionate” workers, so the non passionate ones have someone to offload problems to...

I rue this era when HR mimics the tactics of marketing... we want passionate “ninjas,” (whatever the term of the day is) who “share our vision” “to make a better world”. You know what. Hire people to do the job description you post. All the other frills are just image marketing.

There's some nuance and complication there, of course--putting aside the marketspeak for "ninjas" (which has been bullshit since it was first termed; I think that, and similar terms, are at last dead and buried, no?), if you're a mission- or social impact-oriented organization, a fair number of your potential hires are actively seeing a source of fulfillment in their work, and providing them with an outlet for that can benefit everybody involved. I don't say that as justification for taking advantage of people's passions to load them up unfairly; more to acknowledge that there's sometimes more to it than a straight exchange of skills * time for cash.

> if you're a mission- or social impact-oriented organization, a fair number of your potential hires are actively seeing a source of fulfillment in their work..."

I suppose, but I think there are a great number of Non-profits and Volunteer orgs who don't rely on lofty language in order to attract talent. I still think these things should fit the job expected to be carried out. Google and others have these kinds of messages in order to corner talent, but it's not necessary, Microsoft is just as capable and they do not resort to lofty flowery language to achieve their goals and they are no worse than Google for it (in either what they do or what they stand for).

> if you're a mission- or social impact-oriented organization

But are you? The "make a better world" phrase is frequently - especially in this industry - abused to try to sell the most bullshit or even socially negative jobs to people.

Having people like that also enables management to then set expectations based on the work of the outliers. If you aren't being abused then you aren't being a team player. The same way that "unlimited vacation" can easily turn into a competition of who takes the least vacation in order to look the most dedicated.

You touched upon a great invidious point. There should be no reason to mention you have a “great work-life balance”. Manage people well and ensure you foster a culture of people putting in their work or time and then get in with your life the rest of the day. I understand there are people for whom work is their life, but these are the people who need the intervention to see what out there beside work.

Passionate Code Ninjas Wanted!

We seek compliant, disposable robots who will work excessive hours for below-market pay and no advancement, sacrificing their health, happiness, sanity, and years of their lives in order to deliver massive value to the company owners!

Does this sound like YOU? Submit your application today!

If you know someone who loves painting and a mural needs to be painted on Saturday, is it really crazy to think it's less bad to ask them to paint the mural than it would be to ask someone who has no passion for it at all? The question is not "Would you prefer a world in which we ignored the differences in passion and decided to never exploit anyone at all?", the questions is "Which is worse?". It does not say anything at all about whether people think these things are OK. If I tell you killing one person is less bad than killing two, that doesn’t mean I think killing people is OK.

Isn't that true though? If there's an identical distribution of passion across advisors at the start of the program and passion is negatively correlated with deciding to drop out in response to an exploitative advisor, people with exploitative advisors are therefore likely to be (although may not individually be) more passionate. It's essentially just asking if passionate people are more likely to continue towards a goal even in an exploitative environment, and has nothing to do with whether that is a good thing.

> Isn't that true though?

Not in the real world.

1. Like in any organization, the boss exploits the workers he doesn't like more than those he likes. Who he likes might be based a random factor like sense of humor/gender than ability.

2. People rarely drop out of phd programs (single digit percentage at most in my experience) because they don't want to fail. So, in actuality, the drop out rate difference exploitative advisors and good ones is too small to be significant.

3. Somewhat contrary to point 1., passionate students are usually better than uninspired students, and so passionate students usually have more leverage than the uninspired. They can switch advisors or schools - making the advisor look bad. In my experience the exploited ones are usually those who are in the bottom half of ability.

4. Its very difficult for advisors to "fire" a student usually. It reflects badly on them, and they usually have to go through a painful review process with the university to explain why the student was asked to leave. Therefore, advisors will usually treat horribly the students they don't like so they leave on their own accord.

That makes sense[1]. The point I was trying to make is that even if they think [x] is a bad thing, people may still answer that [x] is an accurate summary of reality. They may be wrong, but even so they’re still not making any normative judgement. The questions just aren't designed to give us insight into any of the things the article and my parent comment seem to think they do. They're asking about how reality is and then making assumptions about what the respondents think reality should be.

[1] Except #2. A large percentage of people drop out of PhD programs in America.

Single digit drop out for PhD programs does not sound right, I've believe the stat is closer to 50%:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/PhD-Attrition-How-Much-Is/...

The dropout rate varies significantly by discipline. My experience is only with the natural sciences where in North America at least, most students are funded by their program+advisor, compared to the humanities where funding opportunities are few and far in between.

I would guess that students who are funded by their advisor are much more likely to be exploited compared to the self-funded student because of the monetary exchange going on. But funded students are also less likely to quit because they have a relatively comfy job for five years that protects them from the "real world".

Also, if the student is there on a student visa than quitting could mean losing their visa.

> 1. Like in any organization, the boss exploits the workers he doesn't like more than those he likes. Who he likes might be based a random factor like sense of humor/gender than ability.

Much more likely to exploit workers who are hard working and competent. There isn't much to be gained exploiting unfriendly and unproductive people.

It wouldn't be a surprise if the boss like people who are the most hard working and competent and exploits them the most.

If I was given that question as worded in your comment I would say the student is likely to be more passionate too. That doesn't mean I am endorsing the exploitation, but the question isn't asking that.

In the Company Hierarchy chart that is the cornerstone of the Gervais Principle, I take it these passionate employees make up the Clueless layer that is the essential middle of the pyramid:

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

As a congenital member of the Loser class, I guess it's nice to realize it does have some perks.

I've worked jobs where I loved that exact job and I was willing to compromise and make less money than I otherwise might elsewhere to stay in that situation.

Everyone understood that to be the case, me, employer.

I don't think the employer was taking advantage of me, they were creating the exact environment that I really enjoyed.... that was the trade.

I was also involved in a situation where we had some inters we hired who put in a TON of extra work (the other interns very much not so...). These guys didn't have to but they put in a lot of work as interns and kept at it after that. They were paid less than those around them (granted still paid quite well) with more experience, but in return they got to start in a position that they otherwise would not start in (more experience required), and that took extra work on their part to get caught up.

They loved the work, their careers got a pretty big boost and after a while they were making roughly the same as everyone else (ballpark).

I think half the battle here is communication. Talk to your boss and get on the same page if you can.

Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are.

> Sitting in your cube and convincing yourself you're being taken advantage of doesn't mean you are.

This is a condescending attitude verging on gaslighting.

"Just because you believe it, doesn't make it true."

A low-power truism used to dismiss real pain.

I don't think I understand what you mean.

I've known plenty of people who imagine they're being taken advantage of, but aren't working with their employer on it, and don't know the lay of the land.

I'm not convinced many people really know their value in the market / what their employer really thinks / is doing, but you'd have to know those things to really know if you're being taken advantage of.

The situation is vastly more complicated than people appreciate. Because you can have people who:

Know their value and are being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and are being taken advantage of. Know their value and aren't being taken advantage of. Don't know their value and aren't being taken advantage of.

Not to mention the cases where the employer isn't aware of the value their employee is providing and would adjust their compensation if they were aware. Or the employee is taking advantage of the employer. Or many other things I haven't thought of.

I don't understand the mindset that the simple existence of a disparity means that someone is being taken for a ride.

Yes AND if you could be doing that same passionate work that you want to do anyway AND get more compensation for it, would you not also want that?

There's a grey layer of advocating for ourselves that we're not taught in school, and I think that is what some folks are keying in to. If you're putting in overtime or working outside your job description, then talk to your boss about _also_ getting compensated for that.

I started a company to do negotiation and self-advocacy coaching so I'm a little biased, but in my experience we do a disservice to paint "self-advocacy" as a false dichotomy or an extreme of ego vs self-sacrifice. Self-advocacy is simply part of all healthy relationships, including professional ones.

If you hate your job, someone may be taking advantage of you.

If you love your job, someone may be taking advantage of you.

Someone may be taking advantage of you. Or not. Who knows?

I think your comment sums up my working life better than the article.

This is what the oppressor vs oppressed narrative will get you. A constant state of trying to identify the group that is exploiting another even when such thing does not exist.

This thought is incredibly reductive and dismissive of abuse.

Not all relationships are between oppressor and oppressed, obviously. It does not mean they do not exist. The history of capitalism is especially rife with clear examples of those in power exploiting those lacking it. Power being capital or wealth.

Exploitation does not exist?

Has it ever?

Your comment sounds more like a soap box than interacting with the actual article.

> In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom.

This is not normal and professional behavior.

Given that the Waltons family is worth more than the bottom billion people on the planet and their main achievement was being born from the right vagina, yes exploitation exists.

Now the question for that billion is, are the Waltons worth eating? Which I suppose depends on how badly the crops have failed that year.

If you love your job, you could be getting paid less. Clearly you are taking advantage of your employer.

If you hate your job, clearly you've stayed because they are offering more than any place that is better and you're taking advantage of your employer.

I'll have to apologize and return all this money.

If you hate your job you're automatically paying yourself less in stress offset. IMO stress and meaninglessness at work is not worth any $ at all

The parent comment to mine was facetiously showing how the employer is always taking advantage of the employee. I'm showing that it's "clearly" the other way around.

It's almost like it is an exchange of services and goods negotiated along a variety of criteria.

Depending on how you look at it, the employer is and isn't taking advantage of the employee, or the reverse, the employee taking advantage of the employer. But thinking too much about this is not healthy, it's good to just be aware of it. Thinking too much may make you jump ship and move around to other companies and potentially make more money but in the long run, i don't think this necessarily translates into happiness, productivity, etc.. The trick is to find the balance.

If you love your job, but hate your politicians, and your company's investors are laundering their profits through PACs to purchase said politicians, then your employer is—perhaps not so clearly—taking advantage of you.

And you should be paid more.

Have you ever counted out how much political money comes out of your paycheck before it reaches your house?

Taxes, FICA, health insurance and other benefits paid on my behalf come out of my paycheck.

What any investors or executives do with money that was never mine (aka “their profits”) is not “coming out of my paycheck.”

> money that was never mine is not “coming out of my paycheck.”

That's a funny way of looking at it. All value originates in the labor of people like you and me. It's only an accounting trick that any of it appears to end up in others' hands.

IMO, it's a more funny way of looking at it to think that money that no one ever agreed to pay me when I freely negotiated for my salary was somehow originally "mine".

It's a well-known fact that most people under-negotiate.

That is a bizzare POV. Labor has no inherent value on its own, it is only valuable in contexts when it can be used to benefit others. Constructing those contexts often requires capital expenditure. Labor believing that capital is unnecessary makes about as much sense as sales believing engineering is unnecessary (because we bring in all the money) or vice versa.

and most of the time... Who cares?

You will know you are being taken advantage of when your are verbally abused, given unreasonable deadlines and being asked to do jobs far outside your job description.

In capitalism, by definition you are compensated less than the work you put in. The leftover is called "Surplus". And that is divvied up between the board,C levels, and shareholders (sometimes). The surplus is never split up to the ones who actually do the work.

I'm sure the complaint will be that I'm calling for state socialism. Nope. I'm calling for worker coops, and worker owned businesses. That way, we the workers can profit(positively or negatively) from our own input.

> "to the ones who actually do the work"

who gets to define what constitutes work?

It's pretty easy, if the person disappears, are the goods/services still provided? If so, then that person did not do anything which constituted work.

Who supplies the capital for worker co-ops? That's the problem, as I see it. Yeah, workers lose out on the surplus in typical company. However, workers aren't risking their own capital. If the company goes bankrupt, the worker only loses their job, not their investment (unless they took equity as part of a compensation package).

The workers of course - most small to medium sized law firms are worker co-ops where new members 'buy a seat', effectively adding their share of the working capital

That works well for law firms because law firms are built on human capital. How do you accomplish this with capital-intensive heavy industry such as automobile manufacturing?

If your plant is worth a billion dollars and you have 1000 employees, do you charge a new worker ~$1 million to "buy their seat?" And if so, how do you prevent an outside investor from "sponsoring" the million-dollar buy-in for multiple employees, in exchange for a cut of their wages (in effect, duplicating the capitalism we have right now)?

The above model situation is more-or-less identical to what you see with taxicab medallions in big cities like New York. There are taxicab companies who buy multiple medallions (at great cost) and rent them to drivers, contradicting our usual expectation that taxicab drivers are self-capitalized entrepreneurs.

Are they I though that was partnerships or really the v old guild mode.

Anteing is a very Spanish mondragon thing I haven't heard of it in the UK

> most small to medium sized law firms are worker co-ops

Really? Paralegals, secretaries etc. are equal full partners?

A partnership of professionals with wage-labor support staff isn't a labor coop.

You're right of course - the partners however do work this way, mostly I was trying to point out that a worker coop is not a new thing, or necessarily a communist lefty thing - forms of it have long been part and parcel of business

> I'm calling for worker coops, and worker owned businesses

I'm not being argumentative here; I just want to point out that Not everyone is Brilliant and Extraordinary, at least Not in their job. On the other hand--some people are.

On a personally note: a huge deciding factor in my getting out of a family business was due to an association that my late father had with a competitor. Yes he was much older, and of course more experienced, but I knew I could not compete with him. Period, end of story.

Furthermore, from the ten years I did run that business (and successfully by most metrics), I also met other people who ran other types of businesses, that were also just ridiculously talented at their work. People like that have almost a Sixth Sense about what to do, and what not to do and when to do it. I may have that in certain arenas, But I did not posses it in that family business.

Exploitation of labour is one of the basic concepts in capitalism. It is a social relationship based on an asymmetry in a power relationship between workers and their employers. Therefor it is independent of the fact if you love or hate your job.

Interesting that the comment got down-voted when it's practically a copy of the definition from wikipedia.

That's the startup business model. Fill them with dreams, overwork them, and discard them when the dream fails.

WeWork has a series of motivational articles to do just that.[1] That's part of WeWork's business case for charging more for their office space.

[1] https://www.wework.com/creator/personal-profiles/turn-career...

This seems to be regularly happening in "passion" fields like human space flight, or bleeding edge tech spaces like self driving cars, medical technology, etc. For an example, just look at salaries between places like SpaceX, Blue Origin, or Virgin Galactic where total comp for a software engineer is between ~100-140K vs any FAANG company where equivalent experience will pull in upwards of ~200K TC. The disparity is even larger for non-software roles (EE, HDE, ME). I acknowledge that there are more than likely other forces here, but I highly doubt that the labor supply for these specialized skills is higher than that for general software engineering. Perhaps this is a place where unionization could be helpful.

When you can't offer salaries, offer them dreams.

You've mentioned fields that are more to do with hardware and physical/scientific innovation, like SDC's using all sorts of different sensors/predictive modeling, rockets that use physics/materials science/sensors, medical tech which draws heavily from many diff STEM fields. R&D in these fields is expensive and riskier than FAANG companies who use advertising/privacy exploitation to squeeze profits from the masses of users.

IMO, we need to create an economic/regulatory environment which more heavily penalizes/taxes those negative aspects of ads/social media while pouring more into R&D in the sciences.

Well, it goes both ways.

I love my job because it's not that difficult, it pays really well, and it's something I've had experience with for decades.

I can get most of my work done in the span of 2 hours/day and have time left over to work on my side business. My boss is extremely happy with my work and I actually have been making more progress than most of the previous developers in my position.

Just out of curiosity, what line of work are you in? Sounds like a great set up you have there.

When I was in a less-than-ideal job situation a few years ago, I found myself saying "... but I love my job" to a friend. I'll never forget the reply: "... you may love your job, but the job doesn't love you back". It was tough to hear it, but in hindsight I'm very thankful for that jolt.

Yeah, I know.

I am loving what I do and my boss knows it. So, he lets me run loose to do whatever I think necessary for the business. In a way, I am taking more responsibilities than he asks for my role. But at the same time, I am also taking advantage of this by learning and applying interesting stuffs to help me advance.

If I love my job, then I'm not being taken advantage of (from my perspective). If I'm being taken advantage of, that is a strong force to get me to hate my job.

Whether or not my supervisors think they're taking advantage of me is a different matter, and one that is largely irrelevant to me.

Its like if spanking was your fetish but the person spanking you believes they are punishing you. It's irrelevant to the person being spanked as long as they enjoy it.

I feel like this entire forum demonstrates a chronic pessimism by rejecting the idea that a deal can be a 'win-win', that somehow both participants in the deal can benefit and the world is non-zero

I think that my comment, and the one you're directly replying to, are both describing win-win situations.

Yes you're right and I was not saying otherwise. I was trying to point out that it's more the exception than the rule. The entire other 99% of the thread, and the OP topic itself is suggesting that relationships can only be win-lose

Hilarious, but an apt analogy. It might make more sense to say that anyone who doesn't work for themselves is being taken advantage of - that said, I prefer the simplicity of punching the clock to the scramble of running my own business, so I guess I'm a masochist too.

I used to think the same way when I was passionate about my job in my previous company. However now I feel I was exploited and may be got burnt out due to that. Also I was not working on any altruist project so my passion probably didn't help make this world better. I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that.

> I think it is important to balance passion with your personal and social commitments. I hope you are doing that.

If I'm not, then that's the fault of my own behavior and isn't related to whether or not my employer is taking advantage of me. If my employer actively prevents me from being able to live a healthy life, that's a different matter entirely -- but I wouldn't be working there for long.

Not necessarily. You could love your job and compensation and all ... but that could change when you realize someone of your rank is earning double for the same work.

"Loving" is not binary. There might be room to love it even more, especially if they stop taking advantage of you.

> but that could change

If it changes, then I no longer love my job...

From the article:

"In one study, participants who read that an artist was strongly passionate about his job said it was more legitimate for the boss to exploit the artist than those who read the artist wasn’t as passionate. This finding extended to asking for work far beyond the job description, including leaving a day at the park with family and cleaning the office bathroom."

These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM.

> These are regular people taking part in a survey, saying that it's OK to make a passionate person cancel a family weekend outing TO CLEAN THE OFFICE BATHROOM.

If I were required to do that sort of thing, then I would consider that being taken advantage of, and I would stop loving the job.

Exactly my thoughts. I would rather be in a job I love and taken advantage of instead of being in a job I hate not being taken advantage of.

I don’t think this study means much. It’s not “it’s ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions”, but rather “it’s more ok to make passionate people endure bad conditions than non-passionate people”.

I don’t particularly agree with this, but if I was asked if it’s ok to ask for overtime from people who hate their jobs and then people who love their jobs, I wouldn’t be surprised if I answered slightly better for those who love their jobs.

Survey design imo. Or perhaps more retroactive Protestant work ethic bias.

Outside of tech, there are certainly industries that thrive on low-paid junior workers and get away with it because there are so many desperate for a "foot in the door" that they don't have to pay more e.g. entertainment, most D.C. gov jobs.

Even inside of tech, I think one can safely say that there are certain areas that do the same. Game development for instance.

In certain companies, unpaid (or poorly paid) interns are in a similar situation.

NASA was once like that. A long time ago.

Game development is hell if you're not at the top.

Dealing with Hollywood is a pain if you're not dazzled by the industry. Either they're in development and their credit cards bounce, or they're in production and they want a new feature yesterday.

One of the most difficult challenges for me during my career is establishing boundaries to curb when I am being exploited. I am passionate about writing awesome, powerful software, so I am willing to put in long hours and grind because I genuinely love it. However, it's important to step back now and again and look at your value more objectively from your employer's standpoint, and negotiate compensation, hours, etc from that perspective. Otherwise you will burn out. You'll always be "exploited" to some degree, since it's the nature of a business making money, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it can be.

A metric I've found useful: Is your boss directing what you're working on right now?

Software is a profession, and like any profession it requires that you put in time to practice and expand your skills. Keep what you need to do for work separate from what you want to do to grow.

If you have a lot of passion and overwork yourself you will still burn out. It's good to establish boundaries with yourself and take some time for other things outside your passion bubble. That will make you more productive too.

Companies don’t care about anything that doesn’t drive the bottom line.

The goal is making it clear that keeping you happy improves their bottom line.

There is an EconTalk with a Broadway producer. And he talks about the history of why Broadway unionized but essentially people were so willing to work that producers wouldn’t even pay them.

The fashion industry is much the same today. Models, photographers, hair and make up artists working very hard for free or nearly for free - hoping to make it.

http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broad...

I remember there are arguments that motherhood is seen as unpaid work. I wonder if there is a connection here with that. There seems to be a stronger shift in the past ten years or so where mothers are increasingly called out on being a "bad mother". Is there some relation there with the cultural attitudes on exploiting passion?

Do the extra work nobody else wants to do and you can get away with so much. Definitely worth the tradeoff IMO.

> If someone is passionate about what they do, we see it as more legitimate to exploit them

That, to me, is a lot different than taking advantage. There are plenty of reasons you would take advantage of your job too... it’s not a negative thing, it’s making the best of it.

It’s a much better title.

Of course. I long developed that inner rule: whenever i am going to execute any business transaction and know i will not feel guilty as a result, i am going to be taken advantage of and should not do it.

That assumes zero-sum, and one-time transactions. Two parties can have a transaction where both go away happy, neither was taken advantage of, and both would like to do it again. If you push to have a transaction that's to your advantage, you might get one, and you might also make someone less inclined to do business with you again.

Not really! It even pertains to long-term relationship. If you are not hard enough on your clients, they perceive you as cheap labor. And you become cheap labor.

I'm not suggesting letting yourself get cheated. I'm suggesting not pushing so hard that the person you're dealing with feels cheated, either. You shouldn't feel guilty about making a good deal, and neither should the person you're dealing with.

"Always violate your conscience" does not sound like good advice. Maybe you're working on the assumption that you "feel guilty" about deals that are actually fair?

Besides which, economics is all based on the fact that two parties in a trade can both win because they want different things. Eg, you have a surplus of oranges, I have a surplus of apples. I value my first apple highly (I like apples!) but my ten thousandth apple is nearly worthless to me. I'd happily trade that last apple for a tenth of an orange. And you'd gladly trade your last orange for a tenth of an apple. We trade some of our fruit 1:1 and we both got a deal 10x better than what we'd accept.

So to sum up: "If you love what you do, your employer won't make you stop doing it, and might encourage you to do it more." and this means they are taking advantage of you.

There is no difference between alcoholism and workaholism. Both are manifestations of lack of control over self.

Do extra work for same pay... that is usually how it goes for me... I suck at salary negotiations.

I think people should have a sense of ownership over their jobs.

Labor is the source of value. The managerial and owner class is paid and gets rich through the surplus of your labor. If your boss stops working, value is still created. If you stop working, everything grinds to a halt.

You are being taken advantage of.

Yes Marx, you are right, and that model not only explains everything but it has been successful in modeling the future, public policy and to organize labor.

Do you have any awareness that this is just a framing, not objective truth? Applying a set of labels to match a predetermined story with two dimensional pre set roles.

If an owner closes a company and stops paying any salaries just because he has enough money already, is that good or bad for the wage earner? If the labor has inherent value why does he need a boss/owner in the first place?

Marxist or any other framing devolves to drivel when you use it mindlessly by rote- painting by the numbers won’t create any new art and mouthing platitudes creates no new information.

Labor is only one of many sources of value. Some other sources are technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources. A business, by necessity, brings much more to table than the mere sum of the labor.

The managerial class is paid to efficiently organize human resources (hiring, motivating, growing, conflict resolution, scheduling, removing obstacles to labor) and non-human resources (budgeting, purchasing, etc).

The owner is paid for making sure a company is aligned with a vision, investing resources, securing funding, assuming liability, and taking risks.

Labor is worth very little without the above mentioned things. This is why people often work for others rather than themselves.

>technology, machinery, relationships, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources

Literally all of these are a result of labor. Maybe not relationships per se but in a business context, yes. The rest of your comment also seems very ignorant of basic Marx

Consider the idea that he thinks Marx is wrong and that basic Marx is more basic than Marx.

Can you dispute the idea that technology, machinery, capital, education, experience, reputation, and efficient organization of resources are not all direct outcomes of labor?

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