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There was a great TED Podcast called "The Money Paradox" that talked about how poorly money works as a motivator for creative professions: http://www.npr.org/2014/04/04/295368808/how-much-does-money-...

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It should be noted that this assumes that a basic level of income has been reached. While it's not usually a concern for the type of crowd that might frequent HN, it is a pretty big caveat.

It has always seemed to me that "I love that I get paid to do what I'm passionate about!" is in most (clearly not all) instances either a form of sweet lemon rationalization or else a kind of expression of stockholm syndrome.

That I am passionate about something does not imply I ought to be compensated less for it than I otherwise might be and, no, providing a space merely for me to do what I like is not "compensation." Employers love that there are so many people for whom "money is a poor motivator." It assists them in keeping the imbalance that exists stable (or growing).

Also, that paradox really only applies broadly to a very special kind of person, and generally only to people who are in professions for which a substantial minimum income is the general rule. I also suspect it's only true for a certain range (e.g. an additional 5-15% might not be of interest, but start talking about 20% or more of an increase and that gets to be another discussion altogether).

I love doing my job, and in a Star Trek-style socialist paradise I'd gladly do the same job even without differential compensation versus other options. That said, as a class-conscious worker in a capitalist system, I would never accept job satisfaction in lieu of fair pay.

I did take a pay cut for a while to work at a startup, but that was a choice I made based on the expectation that once the financial situation changed the founders would do right by me (and it did, and they did).

Somebody said to me in graduate school "You take the best offer you get, somebody else is determining your future." She took the job she wanted. What's wrong with that? It's not all about the money.

There's a big difference between only taking the best offer (by which I assume you mean most lucrative) and only taking offers that are adequately compensated for the work performed. There's lots of employers that take advantage of their employees' desire to do good in the world in order to shortchange them.

"You take the best offer you get, somebody else is determining your future" generalizes: "You take any offer (of employment), somebody else is determining your future." Both are fairly vacuous tautologies.

Be as cynical as you like. But its still possible to keep looking until you find something that fits your priorities instead of signing up for the first big bank that makes a big offer.

I would say instead, if you take the best offer, somebody else is determining your past. That's because the salary you receive becomes your past when you use it to negotiate the next offer.

While this is true for many, not necessarily for all, and I'd definitely call bullshit if you try to generalize it. It boils down to personal goals.

Let's assume I want to build a real-world helicopter. I don't work in that industry, nevertheless, I earn something reasonable, and I am happy with it. Money may not be a prime motivator for my everyday job, but any 'above-the-minimum-happiness' money contributes to my long-term plan of building a real-world helicopter. And having such a long-term goal, in addition with the money that helps me to achieve that will increase my happiness way more than I've had been just with the job and less money.

Having more money without a goal is not a motivator. Getting more money to achieve an already established goal is.

There are two problems with setting goals for anything but menial tasks:

1) It's incredibly hard to set goals for complex projects without having unforeseen problems or side-effects (e.g. the product shipped on time, but it's buggy)

2) Experiments have consistently shown that creativity is negatively impacted by incentives (possibly due to stress causing narrowed focus)

I was just about to suggest Daniel Pink's book [1] when I clicked through and saw that a talk from him is a segment on the podcast.

In any case, the book is worth a read. I had a copy forced on me years and didn't crack it open for ages - I wish I'd started reading it sooner.

1: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594484805

In the market for prized tech talent in the SF Bay Area, a good environment, self direction, room to develop mastery, etc, are table stakes. So what's left? Cash, equity and benefits. And they definitely matter.

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