[HN Gopher] Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts (2019)
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Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts (2019)
Author : _trackno5
Score : 40 points
Date : 2022-10-27 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (dvassallo.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dvassallo.medium.com)
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Amazingly little perspective some of these guys have. Appears to
| have been his first job and he's 8 years in, so we're looking at
| what? A roughly 30 year-old guy who has worked at all of one
| employer and he's sitting here talking as if he's an expert on
| what motivates humans across a lifetime.
|
| Feel free to share your experience and beliefs, but please don't
| act like this is science and you're some kind of authority. You
| have no idea if you'll even still agree with yourself in another
| decade. I know for damn sure I no longer believe life has the
| same purpose for me I thought it did when I was 30.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| > Feel free to share your experience and beliefs, but please
| don't act like this is science and you're some kind of
| authority.
|
| I'd suspect there's a correlation between this behavior and
| quick IC SWE promotion at big companies.
| airza wrote:
| Other than the fact that it is insanely self-indulgent to brag
| about leaving all this money behind, but it's not even true. I
| left my job to work on my own project/startup for a while and the
| shine certainly wears off after a while.
| ok_dad wrote:
| Did the shine wear off once your personal project became actual
| work? I want to quit and work on my personal stuff so badly,
| but I think I'll get to the point that I won't see a reason why
| I stopped getting money for doing the same thing.
| paales2 wrote:
| At first you choose something, after a while you have
| something. That is the time to choose something again.
| moosedev wrote:
| Please update the post title to add "(2019)".
| _trackno5 wrote:
| Done :)
| moosedev wrote:
| Thanks!
| rippercushions wrote:
| (2019). If you're wondering what happened next, he bootstrapped a
| business selling PDFs and videos and claims to be have made over
| $200k off it in 2021.
|
| https://dvassallo.medium.com/from-employee-to-bootstrapper-9...
| ghostbrainalpha wrote:
| Is there reason to doubt his "claim"?
|
| His class costs $375.
|
| It seems reasonable that he has 600 sales in a year.
| kritiko wrote:
| Ah the old rise & grind trick of teaching other people to have
| grindset.
|
| I went to his Twitter/website and the course is well marketed.
| But it's disqualifying to me that he's not building something
| else.
| solarmist wrote:
| He's also part-time head of product (I think) at GumRoad.
| berkeleyjunk wrote:
| I think this depends a lot on how you are wired. Not everyone
| thinks of their job as their identity (some certainly do). Some
| people would just do the job for the lots of money/security and
| do something more meaningful in their spare time.
| dottedmag wrote:
| > I'm going all in on independence, and I'm going to try to make
| a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing.
|
| This sounds pretty wild, given $511K/y last year.
|
| I don't want to sound bitter about it, but I am a sole provider
| for a family of 5, and I guess I could _retire_ after two years
| of these earnings.
| shadowfoxx wrote:
| Yeah there's some real mental gymnastics here; "Starting from
| nothing..." "...The goal is to provide for my family before I
| run out of savings"
| travisjungroth wrote:
| I'd take it to mean starting a project from scratch.
| Obviously he's not "starting from nothing" like he was kicked
| out of an orphanage.
| hosh wrote:
| If your intrinsic motivation is for your family, you might be
| able to pull it off. It's a recipe for burnout, but it can be
| doable. Assuming that the work itself is something you're not
| intrinsically motivated for.
|
| You'd also be sacrificing a lot with time with your family.
| Your marriage will get tested. You'll miss out on some things
| with your kids growing up. If the stress is severe enough that
| it changes how you would habitually relate to your family
| (getting crankier, for example), that is the kind of dad you
| will be remembered by your kids. The question is if on your
| deathbed, looking back at how it all played out, that the
| sacrifice was worth it.
|
| I don't think there is a universally right or wrong choice in
| this. The emotional toll of _not_ having enough to support your
| family _and_ being in a soul-sucking job is worse.
| dottedmag wrote:
| Two years of a senior job in Amazon that isn't motivating
| enough is a recipe for burnout? Come on.
| BaseballPhysics wrote:
| > I don't want to sound bitter about it, but I am a sole
| provider for a family of 5, and I guess I could _retire_ after
| two years of these earnings.
|
| To be clear: You really couldn't. After tax that's probably
| more like, what, 300k depending on where you live. Family of
| five, you could save, what, 250k optimistically? Which means
| 500k in two years. And you cannot retire on 500k.
|
| But, say, 10 years? That's doable depending on your expected
| income in retirement. Which is, admittedly, still pretty damn
| good...
| [deleted]
| dottedmag wrote:
| > And you cannot retire on 500k.
|
| Not everyone lives in US, and I would not be starting from
| scratch, unlike what author suggests :)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| taeric wrote:
| This is a false idea that we have any idea what motivation
| actually lasts. As the saying goes, "change is the only
| constant."
|
| Certainly intrinsic motivation is the more likely to last
| compared to extrinsic. But, I think there is a lot of selection
| bias when we choose to claim which is which.
|
| And there is a lot of ignoring what having the ability to take a
| risk has. Stability and safety can help most anything last.
| chatterhead wrote:
| Money motivates me intrinsically. Feel free to send me whatever
| monies you have that don't have that affect on you.
| uni_rule wrote:
| You fool! Not starving or freezing is an _extrinsic_ motivator!
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Exactly, I despise these articles. I will never believe they
| are anything other than propaganda to trick people to want less
| money from work.
|
| Oh so this guy is starting a company. Is there any chance that
| perhaps he cannot afford to pay people $500k like he was
| making. Now I guess he has some intrinsic motivation to promote
| lower pay so he can hire people to work for him cheap.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| I'm sure some subset of people are _intrinsically_ motivated by
| money as a high score. I 'm _extrinsically_ motivated by money.
| That 's nice too.
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