Having a passion is fine.

Following your passion is fine.

Complaining about low pay because you are following your passion is not. If they're complaining, they care about more than their passions, and they (not their employers) are responsible for satisfying their needs.

You can get lucky and follow your passion as well as take care of material needs, but those are the exceptions. Not the norm.

No, passion and money usually aligned. That's the whole undernote of any startup pitch.

If there were not aligned, then we should strive to change the market and society to make them align. Without a proper incentive mechanism, no innovation can be done optimally.

>No, passion and money usually aligned. That's the whole undernote of any startup pitch.

I would beg to differ. The aligned ones are the exceptions.

Unless your passion is to make money, that is.

The whole point is that if your passion is something other than to get rich, you are more inclined than the average person to take lower pay to pursue your passions.

"Wow, it's awesome employer X is willing to pay me to do passion Y. I never thought I could make a living doing this!"

"Those who use their skills to do boring work (code/CAD monkey) to make more money are sellouts!"

Most startups are in it for the money. As pg himself wrote: It's not at all unusual in the early phases for a startup to completely change direction because they didn't find a market for their "passion". The goal is to get rich, not to solve business problem Z.

>Without a proper incentive mechanism, no innovation can be done optimally.

I agree with the caveat that the incentive need not be "get rich". Making a lot of money often lowers innovation by constraining it.

Our definition of "rich" likely differs.

I am saying rich being above average and can secure a above average starting point for offspring. I do not think rich should be "rich enough to be considered privileged".

So you are saying get rid of SV?

Greed and desire for the pot of gold are illusions.

if you're working as an employee for someone else, it's not your passion. it's their business and your misplaced enthusiasm.

True but its also your rent check and food money while you (hopefully) build the skills and experience to come up with your own.

yes, precisely. that is a pragmatic attitude that ought to be sufficient to prevent heartbreak and career dislocation. however, it is clear that many people are not so pragmatic and act with greater naivety and do get exploited by taking a job as an employee in something they have enthusiasm for, and conflating that with their passion, inevitably leading to a poor outcome for them.

You have to have passion for something that makes money....