[HN Gopher] Passion over Profits
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Passion over Profits
Author : dillonshook
Score : 69 points
Date : 2025-08-14 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
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| sneak wrote:
| Making more money allows you to donate more to organizations that
| hire full time staff to achieve your broader goals for the world.
|
| 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.
| marcodena wrote:
| "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.
| ori_b wrote:
| I haven't yet found a way to hire someone find work interesting
| on my behalf.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > Making more money allows you to donate more to organizations
| that hire full time staff to achieve your broader goals for the
| world.
|
| > 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.
| _heimdall wrote:
| If you're able to work from home, why not live inside a
| forest with fresh air and walking space?
| bayindirh wrote:
| I don't live alone?
| Thorrez wrote:
| >Generally while having less time for yourself and suffering
| more.
|
| 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.
| sneak wrote:
| > _Generally while having less time for yourself and
| suffering more._
|
| 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.
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| Depends on what you want to do. For example if you are a really
| good ai engineer and want to influence ai safety for example
| getting a lead role at a bug company will probably get you more
| influence than donating.
| sixdimensional wrote:
| I'm not sure I totally agree.
|
| 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.
| pm90 wrote:
| While I understand the sentiment, its often not that black and
| white.
|
| 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.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| "I am very mindful of who gets the "benefits of my passion"
|
| That's a very important consideration.
| munificent wrote:
| _> Because this is how a lot of people get free labor from
| idealistic engineers._
|
| 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.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| Until you've worked at a job where you're genuinely excited to
| get up every morning and hack, it's very hard to empathize with
| this sentiment. Doubly so because employers compelling enough to
| make employees passionate about their jobs often exploit this and
| have extremely substandard working conditions (exhibit A:
| academia). Despite that, once you've been genuinely passionate
| about a job, it's very hard to see the world any other way.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Exhibit B: video games.
|
| 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.
| abirch wrote:
| Exhibit C: Zoo employees
| xorcist wrote:
| The music industry.
|
| The film industry.
| keybored wrote:
| Empathize with what? Many people have experience with having
| free time and thus know what it's like to do things that they
| like doing. 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.
|
| 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.
| johnfn wrote:
| No one is arguing that people don't understand the concept of
| being excited. But I think a lot of people would be less
| convinced that it's possible to be passionate about your
| work.
| keybored wrote:
| I know and believe that it is possible for a slave to be
| happy because she is a slave.
| johnfn wrote:
| Yes, that's a perfect example of what someone who didn't
| believe that work can be gratifying would say.
| keybored wrote:
| My statement directly contradicts "someone who [don't]
| believe that work can be gratifying".
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I don't have millions and because of $life, I'm behind where
| I "should be" with retirement savings. Don't cry for me, I'm
| good and catching up.
|
| 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.
| MontyCarloHall wrote:
| >Empathize with what?
|
| 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.
| keybored wrote:
| > 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.
| gopalv wrote:
| > get up every morning and hack, it's very hard to empathize
| with this sentiment
|
| 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).
| saulpw wrote:
| An interesting fact I learned: the original definition of
| "Passion" is the intimate suffering of Christ on the cross.
| It brings new meaning to corporations wanting Passion from
| their employees.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Doubly so because employers compelling enough to make
| employees passionate about their jobs often exploit this and
| have extremely substandard working conditions
|
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| My dad was a professor in his later years. He once had a
| conversation with a secretary (back before computers replaced
| them) who complained:
|
| "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!"
| nativeit wrote:
| I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your broader sentiment,
| but before Google I can't think of many employers that provide
| the kind of open-ended projects and fringe benefits (Olympic-
| class gyms, rec centers, libraries, intellectually-enriched
| social environments, access to world-class
| research/engineering/media facilities, access to LexisNexis,
| etc.) that one gets working at a research university.
| mlinhares wrote:
| I'd take the people over the work anytime, the best places i've
| ever worked at are the places where the people are great to work
| with, even the slog/bureaucratic work is still good when you have
| people that are great at what they do and are fun to be around.
|
| 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.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| >I'd take the people over the work anytime, the best places
| i've ever worked at are the places where the people are great
| to work with, even the slog/bureaucratic work is still good
| when you have people that are great at what they do and are fun
| to be around.
|
| A variant of this that holds true for me is - less corporatized
| level-based ladder climbing 1:1, more just focus on work.
| qwertytyyuu wrote:
| Only if you are at a comfortable salary already, which for this
| field is normal I guess?
| ForeignTapioca wrote:
| This is a assumption I have about most folks who are engaged
| enough to be on hackernews (I guess US based). With the
| possible exception of those folks who live in HCOL areas - most
| software engineers I know have a comfortable enough salary to
| remove obstacles to happiness. Many do choose to prioritize
| money over other factors - but I often see it used for more
| hedonistic/luxury purposes - which IMO isn't really conducive
| to long-term happiness.
|
| 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
| munificent wrote:
| There are a whole lot of working class people working in low
| paying jobs like social work because it aligns with their
| values.
|
| 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.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Passion vs profit is not a dichotomy. If you have a passion for
| making profit you will never have to choose between the two.
| apgwoz wrote:
| _insert guy pointing at his head implying "smart thinking"
| meme_
|
| 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.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| "If you have a passion for making profit you will never have to
| choose between the two."
|
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You should consider the compiler business. Little money, much
| joy!
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Good idea!
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| For me, listing the pros and cons of each company does not lead
| to the decision I make.
|
| 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.
| antimoan wrote:
| one thing that stands out to me is "Senior engineer" vs "Staff
| engineer" position. I was in the same boat 2 years ago and had to
| decide between a startup who hired me as "Senior" with a lower
| salary with the promise of exiting big where I loved the job and
| there were many smart people around me, but then I got an offer
| from a big tech as "Staff" level with almost double the offer and
| benefits. I had a really hard time to decide, but ended up going
| with the latter even though the startup job was my passion.
| However, to my surprise the big tech position helped me to grow
| in ways that I could not even imagine.
|
| 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.
| apwell23 wrote:
| > but then I got an offer from a big tech as "Staff" level with
| almost double
|
| 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.
| antimoan wrote:
| I was Senior before interviews, I was mainly targeting Staff
| level when I was interviewing. No convincing needed, I had
| enough experience to get to Staff level. With Startup I asked
| them for level up but they said they had limited number of
| positions and all they can do is Senior at a higher end of
| it, and can't do Staff.
|
| 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.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I understand your decision and if I were at a different point
| in my life (I am 51, grown kids, low fixed expenses), I would
| have made the same decision. But I'm at a point in life that I
| would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever
| work at BigTech (again) even for twice the money.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| The problem with passion jobs is that you may get a dose of
| disillusionment. I worked for 2 years at a startup which had an
| interesting product and great people. Busted my ass for below
| market pay but when the company got sold, the deal was structured
| in a way that rank and file employees got nothing while the
| founders and top managers walked with multi-millions. Since then
| I am very cynical about "passion". It often seems to be a tool
| for exploiting gullible people. Same in a lot of non-profits.
|
| Low rank work for little money while the top guys make good money
| and fly around the world to meet in luxury hotels.
| calebm wrote:
| "Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where
| you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss,
| doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone
| else." (Joseph Campbell)
| hiAndrewQuinn wrote:
| I think this is a pretty well-reasoned piece, personally. The
| clearest thinking often happens when we are confronted with two
| already pretty solid options and asked to choose between them.
|
| 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.
| agcat wrote:
| People > Work > Pay
| munificent wrote:
| Where do you put meaning and values in that list?
| noobahoi wrote:
| I can't read more about the 'passion' arguments. People who are
| making that 'argument' should read the book 'So good they can't
| ignore' before.
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