Passion over Profits
dillonshook.com
dillonshook.com
Montreal (or any other video game hub) is a great place to start a software business. There are tons of highly qualified, underpaid and overworked software engineers to poach from the video game firms.
The film industry.
But the above doesn’t involve making a profit for an employer. I don’t know if that was supposed to be part of the empathizing.
But the idea of having “passion” for my job - even though I currently work at my favorite job I’ve had in 30 years across 10 jobs - just isn’t me. I would never give up a remote only job because I thought I would be “passionate” about another job and definitely not for less money.
Because of combination of remote work, low fixed expenses and a couple of other hacks, I don’t dread work or even really care about retirement. My wife and I travel frequently now, did the digital nomad thing for a year two years ago and starting next year we plan to spend a few months of the winter internationally and the summer away from home either domestically or internationally.
There was one job that I have had that was meaningful to me. I was an architect for a company that managed sending nurses to the homes and schools of special needs kids. I wrote back end and mobile apps for the nurses and actually had a chance to work with some in the field to understand how the nurses used the devices.
It wasn’t a highly profitable company since most of the revenue came from Medicaid reimbursements. I only left when private equity took the company over and it became a PE rollup play.
Empathize with someone having the same degree of passion towards what they do at work and what they do outside of work.
>Replace all of this job-passion with the fantasy of winning enough millions in the lottery to retire and yeah, there you go. People already fantasize about that.
This is the exact opposite sentiment. People desire endless amount of free time (e.g. retirement) specifically because it lets them spend all of their time pursuing passions that no employer is willing to pay for. Their job is not one of those passions, and it is hard for them to imagine a world in which that could possibly be the case.
While most of my passions would not make for a very lucrative career, one of my passions happens to be solving scientific computing problems I find cool, and I have been very lucky that several employers have been willing to pay good sums of money for me to pursue that passion.
You’re truly the lucky one in that equation.
Even if you have experienced the joy, it might not always be rewarded & the disillusionment burnout is always a risk.
The most bitter folks I've worked with are the ones who started with a lot of passion, but got turned around.
Not to mention that this Passion comes in many flavours.
I would not put a label on my experience, but "autistic joy" is a good comparison to what drives passion in my work - for my partner it comes from the final unveil and other eyes landing on their work.
I only realized this when reading Andre Agassi's book and being stuck in close proximity during the pandemic (and to "bear witness" to provide joy).
Another way to say this is the Law of Supply and Demand. It's no surprise at all that there are a greater number of people interested in a fun job, which reduces the pay offered. Conversely, dirty unpleasant jobs have fewer people interested, so the pay is greater.
It's hard to see here who is exploiting who.
"garbage men get paid more than me!"
My dad replied "why don't you quit and become a garbage collector?"
She angrily replied "but that's a filthy disgusting job!"
I was in a similar situation a few years ago, with one company doing something novel and "better for humanity" v/s just another saas that paid more. While I was leaning towards the former, what really bothered me was 1) their equity structure was quite pitiful, lower than industry standard and 2) They weren't flexible with remote work. Now, I completely understand if the base compensation is smaller than usual, if the equity is higher. The way the equity was structured, it just seemed like in the off chance that the company did become very successful, almost all the benefits would accrue to the founder. And if they weren't offering the best comp, benefits in other areas (like remote flexibility) would have really helped even things out.
I am very mindful of who gets the "benefits of my passion". Because this is how a lot of people get free labor from idealistic engineers. So while I would have preferred the work of the former, I ended up going with the latter; and I don't regret it.
That's a very important consideration.
A more charitable and, I believe honest, way to frame that is that businesses pay people for their labor using a mixture of money and meaning. If the compensation provides more of the latter, it makes sense for the total package to have less of the former.
If I was offered two jobs:
1. Job A: I write code to help an insurance company update its actuarial tables.
2. Job B: I write code to help a climate change organization calculate better ways to save energy.
Then, yes, I'll take less salary to take Job B. I'm not being exploited. I'm being paid in a profoundly meaningful way.
Always remember that money is an indirection. The ultimate goal is a meaningful life that supports your values. Earning money lets you spend it on those meaningful things. But you don't always have to go through cash to get there.
The real trick is finding companies that are actually doing work that aligns with your values and not just trying to appear to be.
Varies a lot where you are on your career as well, i'd never take a job that pays less or is "startupy" at this point in my life, i'm here to make money now and not dream about some future that will likely not happen (worked at multiple startups that led to nothing).
So i'd recommend people to mostly forget passion and think about what you want in your life and your job. I find passion in all things extremely overrated, what you need is love, steady, consistent and reassuring. And don't forget sentiments don't pay bills, money does.
A variant of this that holds true for me is - less corporatized level-based ladder climbing 1:1, more just focus on work.
As a somewhat sentimental person at times, I still really appreciate this comment. I mostly agree with it, it makes sense.
I like your whole comment, it's insightful from where I'm at (and I have enoug life experience to tell it's insightful).
Low rank work for little money while the top guys make good money and fly around the world to meet in luxury hotels.
Because it was a higher level position I had to deal with larger scope problems, I started learning about strategic thinking and dealing with large number of teams and learned to lead and be a thought leader. The people are also smart and turned out to be super nice and helpful and used every opportunity to help me grow. Now when I look back, I don't think I would be happier in the position where I thought it matched my passion, as the other unlocked a new point of view and a different perspective and opportunities. So aside from the money and benefits, make sure you are choosing the one that benefits you the most from different angles, passion and salary is just one angle.
I've always heard the opposite ( staff at startup = senior at big tech )
how did you convince them to interview for staff ? were you staff before startup ?
or were you upleveled to staff after the interview process.
I worked at the startup for a few months before the other offer was finalized. So I have a chance to get to know what it feels to work at the startup as well.
Time is our most valuable resource - 40 hours a week is often more time than people spend with their families and friends during the week, so making sure that that time isn't just a means to an end is something I've tried to prioritize in my life
It's not a given that people only prioritize their values after they are financially comfortable. It does seem to be the case that many people in the software field do.
In other words, follow your bliss, you'll either succeed or never speak of it again.
In the end, the choice is the gut feeling, usually catalyzed by just one point, for which passion and attractive working environment are great candidates.
Or in my case, you realize 20 years later that if you had chased profits and done some ETF investing the next 20 years could have been all passion, potentially without needing to make money for my family.
Lots of different angles to choose from.
That's why I often envy finance people, business people or people whose only interested in a company is to move up. Their passion aligns with profit. I personally care mostly about technology and not at all about business. So to also benefit from my work I also have to think about business which I don't enjoy.
Trying to do that with your own work has inherent maximum scaling limits. Earning money that you can then donate to those causes does not.
More money means more options, more wiggle room.
Also, to me personally, the choice between hybrid and full remote isn’t even a choice.
especially if you do not wanna move to a different city bc of personal reasons.
> More money means more options, more wiggle room.
Generally while having less time for yourself and suffering more.
That's brilliant. I'll take a dozen.
> Also, to me personally, the choice between hybrid and full remote isn’t even a choice.
Exactly. Being able (have) to commute to a campus which has a forest inside and ample place to walk with fresh air beats having to stay in a flat 9 hours 5 days a week by a mile.
The article is talking about a fusion startup that pays less vs a "normal sort of business" that pays more. I would expect the startup to require more work.
And other example is videogame development. Videogame developers get paid less and have to work more compared to other software developers.
I know people who work in startups do great work, but no overtime, and finish what they have to finish on time. On the other hand, I have seen established companies which expect you do overtime with no overpay, because they pay you more than competitors already.
While I'm not working in a startup, I turned down numerous job offers just because I love my job and money is not my primary motivation, like the author of the post. I also did my share of overtime and oft-glorified all-nighters for a long period of time. On the other hand, I'll argue that all-nighters are unnecessary most of the time, and a good indicator of mismanagement.
Game developers love their job and I respect them with all my being, but they are exploited far too often. This still rings in my head from time to time: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
I don’t find that to be the case at all, though I own and operate my own company and haven’t done W2 work for decades. You’re probably right when it comes to standard employment.
Personal profit maximization only works to a point - for example, if you get too old, sick or the system rejects you early and curtails or limits your ability to make money.
I don't disagree that money gives you options, but, far too many people wait until they have enough money to give back.
If you give back while you are working (e.g. balancing working for profit vs working for nonprofit, altruistic reasons, etc.) - that's awesome. The challenge there is maximizing the good you can do if you're giving too much time and energy to your profit maximization.
At some point, someone has do physically do the needed good work.
For myself, the calculus has shifted. I personally decided I cannot wait until I have enough money, or I am maximizing my profit, to go out and help people.
I also cannot wait until I am physically or mentally unable to help beyond financial contributions. Also, I cannot afford to work in the current system that drains everything from you and leaves you no energy or time left, only money (if that).
Regarding the inherent maximum scaling limits of one person- I would challenge your thinking.
Power laws of networks may demonstrate that helping a small number of the right people might be enough to unleash the butterfly effect or play into ongoing changes.
Also, the physical limits of humanity on one person apply to a billionaire as much as a person with little money. I'm not saying a billionaire, millionaire, or person with significant finances isn't more mobile/capable, but it's not a given.
I am for reasonable profit and balance. There is nothing inherently wrong with maximizing profit if someone chooses.
But if we all spend our time on maximizing profit, there still, for the time being and probably well into the future, still needs to be boots on the ground doing work that is not for profit.
With only the information I have in front of me, I would have chosen Offer 2. More money is awesome in a very straightforward way. Staff is more fun than Senior. But mostly I think my view simply is that boring, steady businesses which can afford to pay top dollar for top talent tend to be really good places to drive capitalism forward at compared to relative moonshots like fusion tech. It seems like a much more straightforwardly good value proposition to (letting my brain fill in a random high impact detail here) bust my ass to shave a basis point off of everyone's Vanguard management costs than to work on something like fusion, where I imagine plenty of very motivated people are already exploring this from a lot of different directions.