If the mission is feeding starving children, or curing cancer, or public service, then yes, I want people who are motivated by the mission. But usually the mission, the real mission, is to make the founders exceptionally wealthy, and forgive me if that doesn't get me out of bed in the morning.

Even if the mission is to cure cancer, thats the worst reason to not pay people well. Those are the most difficult problems, and you definitely need the best people to solve the hardest problems. If the idea is to pay people really poor because that problem is so difficult, I think its a bad idea and simply taking advantage of people, not to mention the best people will go solve other problems that pay them well.

This is the problem with education (and all non-profits for that matter).

1. People work in education because they love the work, not the money.

2. We don't need to pay educators well because they're not the tops in their fields.

3. We can't recruit top candidates because the pay is shit.

4. Rinse, repeat.

This man speaks the truth. :-)

I think it's a lost battle but I used to rage whenever I saw a company talk about their 'Vision'. Unless you're a poet, religious mystic or philosopher king - then you're being pretentious and grandiose.

Assuming that I am a cash-strapped philosopher king with a grand vision for my business, how might I sway people to take the vision seriously and work towards the fulfillment of the vision?

I'm assuming the vision you're trying to sell is to make the philosopher king wealthy. (Your stated vision is probably irrelevant.) You need to make your employees' incentives align with that proposition.

Oh OK. What if we assumed that the vision is not concerned with making me, the philosopher king, wealthy?

"We want to change the world, by finding a more efficient way to bike courier organic Nicaraguan coffee beans to your doorstep in the Mission or SoMa."

My god, this is genius. Let me throw investment money at you. Just be sure not to pay the programmers more than $11/hour.

>If the mission is feeding starving children, or curing cancer, or public service

You're typically expected to take a pay cut if you're doing any of these.

Public service pay cuts? Not really. This is for CA, but other states are not too far off.

http://publicpay.ca.gov/

And don't forget life-long pensions at 80% salary.

How many distinguished engineers make anywhere close to these amounts (whether public or private)? Close to zero.

80k was the top bracket? I am pretty sure most developers in California make a lot more than that, especially top ones.

Select "100 top salaries"

But those seem mostly like chief investment officers, CEOs, doctors, dentists and surgeons...

I mean, public service can pay well if you are a commissioner or head of a for-profit part of public service. I'm not sure there is much of a comparison to be made for software developers, though.

I was just pointing out that public service can pay as well as private sector - if not better (pensions at 80% pay!).

Except for police and the already retired I don't think you see a lot of pensions at 80% pay anymore.

FERS gives you 1.1%years of servicehigh 3 average salary, which is about 40% salary for a lifetime of service.

The NYPD give 2.1%years of serviceaverage salary and early retirement at 20 years of service (less 50% social security upon that kicking in) which is a hell of a good deal, but hardly representative of what most government workers get. I think they are probably among the only 80% pay.

You also end up with the (generally state) government worker problem of the government just deciding that paying your pension is expensive, and then having it reduced or removed. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are you asserting that doctors and nurses in american prisons routinely perform dangerous medical experiments on inmates without their consent?

If yes, can you cite a reference (I'd like to know about it)?

If no, then what precisely do you mean?

I meant in the sense of the doctors in the concentration camps, providing some relief, but arguably sustaining an intrinsically immoral system. (Indeed, there were far worse kinda of Nazi doctors...)

I am almost falling out of my chair reading that comment. The only way a US prison doctor enters nazi territory is if they are doing a live donor liver transplant between twins.

Human service workers, biomedical researchers, and etc. still need to make a living too. The problem is that a small sector of the people in the world are being ridiculously greedy.

This drives me nuts! I don't know why I should be motivated by YOUR mission! Especially when your mission is to make as much money as possible in an easily exploited niche you found!

Not all companies are the same. Sure, all companies exist to make money for shareholders, but some companies make cigarettes while other companies make life saving drugs. So, yes, it does make sense to take the company's mission into account when deciding whether to work there or not

Companies that make life saving drugs aren't usually short on money.

If a company made a life saving drug and then released the patent say after 5 years of exploitation, I'd agree with the argument as well.

>We want people who are motivated by the mission

Startup hiring process in a nutshell.

Yup, and if I get a nice block of stock options, then I'll be just as motivated as the founders! Been there.

Ah yes, "The Mission"

Sure, some of them have a social aspect, something interesting, etc

But for others I can't see how they manage to say it with a straight face

So does ISIS.

And you see what results they get in the U.S. markets. Maybe more rational management and pay of experienced professionals would've helped them. They said they weren't mission-oriented and lacked "culture fit," though. So, their numbers are all over the place, goals aren't being met, and competition is all over their territory.

Now ISIS and other startups in that sector can feel free to continue being idiots. The locals need to avoid making the same mistakes, though. ;)