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Comment by MattGaiser | Hacker News Reader

Do companies actually find themselves tons of employees that care so deeply about their mission that they sacrifice pay, equity, promotions, life interests, weekends, and benefits for "the cause"?

I get having a team of 20 that is like this, but it does not seem like a concept that scales unless you are SpaceX.

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> Do companies actually find themselves tons of employees that care so deeply

No, but they find tons of employees who really need a job and hate job-hunting, so once they get in they'll do what it takes to keep the paycheck going. This is particularly common in sectors where the median hire can be young, like... the software industry.

Well this guy quit because Googlers wouldn't work weekends on his command so the answer might be... "no" ?

There will be a few people, but companies like this will look for "passionate" people, or people who are good at pretending to be passionate to get paid.

I doubt it, since I believe recognition and impact on outcomes are highly relevant to someone feeling motivated to go above and beyond in a corporation. When a team scales, the hierarchy becomes dithered and camaraderie decreases overall, resulting in the "mission" meaning different things to different people. This ultimately results in an 80% of people who do as much work as they need to so they don't get fired, a 10% on one end that does a crapton of work, and 10% who work as little as possible. Even the former 10% can only work so hard before their performance is perceived as a threat to the rest of the team whom simply can't keep up their pace.

Video game industries kinda get away with lower salaries, longer hours than rest of the "tech standard".

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