Gojko Adzic » Paying programmers: are bonuses bad and what to do about it?

I propose an experiment. Unilaterally reduce their wages to slightly below the industry average and see how many stay. Then a rather different motivation will emerge. It is one thing to tell an interviewer that you are an idealist who is not motivated by hard cold cash, but the correlation between successful companies and high wages exists for a very good reason, and it's not that the shareholders didn't feel like so much dividend this year.