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Comment by brewski | Hacker News Reader

"They take ownership..."

Reminder: Unless you have an actual stake in the company, you do not own anything you produce for the company. Keep that in mind the next time code you worked on causes a 2am production server crash or is responsible for increasing revenue x10. It is not your code that caused the events but the owner's of the company.

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I think that was a knee-jerk reaction to the word "ownership". That is not the sense used here. There is no contradiction in being given ownership of some task while having no ownership stake in the company; it's two quite different senses of the term.

I disagree - the distinction is still significant in that it's important not to let the responsibilities of ownership land on your plate when you're not getting any of the benefits.

You're not. It's two different meanings of the word. You aren't "responsible" for the running of the business because you've "taken ownership" of the autocomplete widget on the search page. You're getting paid for your ownership of the autocomplete widget, you're not getting paid for your ownership of the corporate direction.

If you're getting paid, you do need to be getting paid because of some responsibility you're discharging, after all.

You can tell it's two different "ownerships" by what happens if you quit. One you retain, the other is simply redistributed to some other developer. They're not the same thing.

I agree with both of you, and I wish there was a better word than "ownership". That term has implications that are inappropriate for a single feature. You don't own the autocomplete widget -- you're responsible for it but you don't own it, the company owns it.

You both own(1) the widget and do not own(2) the widget.

This is English. Multiple definitions for a word are common. Cases where only some definitions apply and not others are common. They happen in almost every sentence. Try to avoid letting that pollute your thought. (It is a challenge. No sarcasm.)

Amazon.com's second leadership principle:

Ownership Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job."

Unfortunately, we no longer live in a society where the employer-employee relationship is one of trust. The definition Amazon.com seems to be using is that owners do shit work and so should you, but maybe I'm misreading.

I think you could also say you manage instead of own and it would still make sense.

The word is "stewardship".

"Stewardship" might be the word we're looking for: it has some connotations of personally invested care, but it's also clear that it's done on behalf of someone else and there's no ownership.

Of course, it also has a history of association with servants of landed gentry, which might make people uncomfortable (for good reasons, to the extent the analogy holds up).

does a salary count as a benefit?

Salary is compensation for quantums of a person's life spent doing something for which he has (presumably) the skills to do. That's not a "benefit;" it's an exchange of value.

"Ownership" is a poor way to express the differences in meaning(s) indicated in this article.

Sort of. The sense that's being used here is a corporatism that means 'act with the level of commitment implied by owning something even though you have none of the rights benefits or responsibilities' - i.e. It is a form of doublethink required by the corporate hierarchy.

It is quite reasonable to ask 'why should I act as if I own think, when actually I do not?'

why should I act as if I own think, when actually I do not?

Because you get paid to?

Yeah - that is the usual reasoning, but acting as if does not make it so.

In my experience, people who are emotionally invested in their work tend to do much better work, and are worth proportionally more because of it. So whether this is correlation or causation, you are indirectly being paid to care as much as you do.

If you're not being paid enough to care that much, or you don't want to care that much, then it is what it is. From the hiring perspective, we should have negotiated a price that works for me and is enough for you to feel that you are fairly compensated for your ownership of the feature. It's a two-sided relationship where you have the ability to just back out of the deal if it isn't working for you.

True, but that generally isn't the stance that employers take when negotiating salaries - that they need to pay enough for people to feel ownership.

'You have the ability to back out of the deal if it isn't working for you' is a cop out for any failing that a corporation may have. It is true but also leads to no new understanding.

I disagree. I think its important to take 'ownership' of your work. Its the best way to obtain visibility in your organization and (for me at least) creates a sense of satisfaction and pride.

If I was just a cog in the machine of the corporate wheel churning through small tasks on a daily basis it would be hard to keep motivated. In fact a lack of ownership for work is what allows large companies to carry so much dead weight for so long. Employees stagnate and start coasting.

I do however take your point to heart and realize taking ownership does not mean I am up til 2am frequently trying to meet unrealistic deadlines.

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