When you're managing a team, contributors can be in one of three positions: 1) they require constant monitoring and adjustment to stay on task, 2) they stay on task as long you keep handing them a task, 3) they understand what is needed for the project to succeed and take initiative beyond their own tasks. The first needs time from me, the second doesn't, the third saves me time. Being a 2 is fine, but don't expect promotions or recognition.

I like the way this is worded because it's fair and it captures the idea of good contributors actually adding value and not just "giving 110%," working extra hours or generally "wearing more than the minimum flair." [1]

That said, this is simple and eloquent, but in practice it's not always this straightforward. The question is, can the 3's expect fair and consistent promotions and recognition, and do they feel that you understand what is needed for the project to succeed? Your superstar 3 may be a single "we know you've done great work here but we just can't get you on that project/we don't have the budget for a promotion/there's no one else available to do this maintenance work right now" from becoming a middling 2 or a no-longer-works-here, and those situations may not always be in your control.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg

VERY well said

There's nothing inherently wrong with that kind of person. The problem arises when you mix the two types of people in a demanding environment where more than the status quo is expected (e.g., at a startup). If you want to coast, stick to defense.

The problem arises when managers have unrealistic expectations. If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs. Different people have different priorities in life, some will be ready to work more to finish more tasks, others will be ready to work just 8h but will be more productive in that timeframe. Or will produce better quality of code during that time or solve harder problems. Not all tasks are the same, nor all programmers produce equal quality of code, so the number of closed tickets in a unit of time is not a very good metric and definitely shouldn't be the only one that matters for an IT company.

> If you hire someone to do 9-5 job and you expect them to do more than that, it's your fault if that fails, not theirs.

I think the biggest teller of an unmotivated person is a generally negative, problem-focussed attitude. No matter the hour of the day, "We can't do x, because..." will destroy nearby "We can do this, if...." people, eventually.

Startups can operate just fine with 9-5 workers. The real limit is startups are generally spinning there wheels on unimportant crap.

The idea that working 9-5 is ipso facto "coasting" is absurd.

If you actually need people to work long hours, then ... you aren't doing it right.

"Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job?"

It's not an issue as long as your top-tier performance is recognized and rewarded on consistent and equitable basis.

However, we don't live in such perfect world. In a world of stack-ranking and office politics, you will never get top marks year after year, and get compensation that is inline with your contribution.

Slowly, it becomes a mentally toxic environment for high achievers, which is a real shame because I think it's possible for them to co-exist happily.

Chances are though, management itself is also complacent if you have department full of 9/5 ers.

Personally, I didn't take "motivated" in the original article to mean just how many hours are worked. One person can spend an 8 hour workday taking the initiative - spotting gaps and proactively jumping in to pick up the slack, learning new concepts when needed, suggesting new product ideas, etc. Another person can spend the same 8 hours passively doing only what was assigned to them and passing the buck whenever possible.

I worked on a team at one point where someone sat on a high-priority bug for a couple weeks without saying anything. Someone finally asked if he was making any progress, and his response was just: "Well someone else wrote that code, so..." He hadn't even tried to look at it. His response after that conversation was to start emailing other people asking if they could fix it, instead of trying to learn that part of the code base. You can spend hours doing that sort of thing, but it's not time well spent.

True there are many who take a job to survive. But I think you are confusing "passion" with motivation. A motivated team member would not sit back while her teammates are passionate about the work.

Isn't that just a recipe for self-exploitation? I'm motivated to do my work. But if you discover "passion" and start putting in 80 hours a week, don't expect me to run myself into the ground alongside you.

I guess it's about doing the best you can within your comfortable time frame. For e.g last week, a colleague of mine was trying to execute a statically compiled program like an executable i.e. ./myprogram.go and then raised hell over how bad Go is and we should rewrite everything in Python. That's the kind of attitude I am talking about.

This. There's also the assumption being made that unmotivated people are just lazy or don't care about their jobs. What if they were people who used to be motivated, but burned out?

>>Is there really anything wrong with the fact that some people don't care to achieve anything more than what's required of them at their job?

If you are trying to build a company of any scale at all, yes, everything, if these are the people you hire. For those individuals, there is nothing wrong with this attitude towards work, but over the long run it will most definitely affect their job security and lifetime earnings. If that's the price they are willing to pay, then that's perfectly fine.

> If you are trying to build a company of any scale at all, yes, everything, if these are the people you hire

i take offense at this sort of attitude, because it implies that the employees are beholden to make _you/the boss_ successful. I imagine that they aren't doing more than what's required because that's what they are paid. I imagine they don't get shares of the company, nor reap the profit if it was successful (and also don't take the risk when it's not).

If a boss tries to make me do more work, but don't offer the equivalent in rewards (which, in my eyes, must be some form of equity and/or profit sharing scheme), then either i won't do it, or will just get by. Unless the company is truly doing something i believe in, or i have something personal, it's not worth it.

> [employees] also don't take the risk when it's not [successful]

This line, which always seems to come from founders, is to my mind pure and utter bullshit. Taking a job with a company that may fail soon is absolutely a big risk, particularly if it's paying below market. Even more so if this person is "passionate" and spends every waking moment thinking about that company's problems, as so many founders love to encourage employees to do. I fail to see how this is any less risky than spending someone else's money (investors) to pursue the creation of a new company. The fact that employees don't share in that reward is just a matter of who was able to get their names on the paperwork, and it has nothing to do with who takes on more risk.

>>This line, which always seems to come from founders, is to my mind pure and utter bullshit.

I'm a founder of a bootstrapped start up, and I agree with you 100%. Early employees take on a ton of risk, and high level employees take on a ton of risk as well. Both tend to be compensated additionally with stock options offering additional upside reward in the marketplace compared to other jobs available.

Regarding going above and beyond a given job description, it's not about working insane hours, nor is it about 'passion', whatever you define that as. It's about gaining a level of trust between employer and employee. At scale, top-level employees don't have time to do consider every single aspect of a job and outline it in a job description before hiring someone, and they need to be able to trust their team to step up when the unexpected occurs.

On the other hand, employers need to earn the trust of their employees that they will fairly compensate them when they do go above and beyond what is asked. Sadly, all too often this doesn't happen, or the employee doesn't stick around long enough to see the payoff. The payoff doesn't always come in terms of stock options either. Sometimes it's just a promotion or a bonus.

Either way, my point was that, as a founder, if you want to be able to grow your company, you need to surround yourself with people you can trust, and that trust is earned when dealing with the unexpected. As an employee, if you want to move up to higher levels in a company and earn more money, you need to take risks and prepare for the unexpected. If you don't trust your employer will compensate you for this, then leave and find one who you trust to do so. If you don't want to step up and help out when things go wrong in your company, don't expect the marketplace to reward you with higher pay, a bonus, or stock options.

We are not talking about asking people to do work for free. If you agree to work for some number of hours per day in exchange for a salary, then you should work those hours and not try to find ways to do less. The latter is straight up dishonest and unprofessional. If you don't think you are getting paid enough, then don't agree to work for the rate offered.

It's astonishing to me the number of people here that feel entitled to try to abuse their employer. Being motivated doesn't mean working more hours than you are paid for, it means trying to do a good job during the time you do work vs trying to do as little as possible while not being fired for poor performance.

It feels a bit selfish to do the minimum you can at a job because you too afraid to actually try for something you enjoy. Of course, if what you enjoy is doing nothing, then I guess I don't have much sympathy.

But if you are passionate about making a change in the world, or even just doing an amazing job at one small thing you love, then you are in the right place. Be in the right place. Don't treat others and yourself poorly by being in a job you hate.

    It feels a bit selfish to do the minimum you
    can at a job because you too afraid to actually
    try for something you enjoy.

Maybe I have other things outside of work that are far more important to me than trying to ensure that the company that I'll have a 0.025% equity stake in in four years becomes the next unicorn. Honestly: why should I care about my founder/CEO becoming a multi-millionaire? What's in it for me?

I think this is where the mission driven bit comes in. If you don't care what the company is doing and their only mission seems to be to make the founders really rich then they've probably screwed up.

If knowledge that you're changing the world is making up for inequitable financial compensation, I'd say you as a worker have screwed up.

I find that view to be a little harsh. It demeans all those people who choose to work for organisations that can't/don't generally pay as much but are driven by other purposes (eg NGOs).

You bring up a valid point. I should have stipulated that I only feel this way about normal for-profit businesses. But I think I covered myself a little with "inequitable" if we take that to mean compared to others at their organization.

I greatly respect people that work for less than they might in the case of non-profits.

Well said. I've volunteered regularly prior to having kids because I was truly giving back to society. At some point, having more money loses it's meaning.

Having the satisfaction of doing a good job ? Not everyone is working simply in order to become richer, there are some which also wants to have a meaningful impact on society.

I like when my clients says the tools I've developped are extremely useful to them, and sometimes it means sticking my neck out and not doing the bare minimum.

> Maybe I have other things outside of work that are far more important to me than trying to ensure that the company that I'll have a 0.025% equity stake in in four years becomes the next unicorn

Sadly, you're not that important to the success of the company. You can quit tomorrow and they would find a replacement in due time and continue on.

Also, it's highly unlikely that the founder and CEO is going to end up a multimillionaire even if you were a high performing software engineer.

> What's in it for me?

How about not wasting your life? I mean dude, you're spending at least 40 hours a week working. Why not find something you love doing?

    How about not wasting your life? I mean dude,
    you're spending at least 40 hours a week working.
    Why not find something you love doing?

I do. But I enjoy what I do outside of work much, much more than I do offering my employer unpaid overtime. So, I make those 40 hours count. I work extremely hard, and then I'm done.

Sure, there's the occasional night or weekend that I'll work; I'm not going to leave my project in jeopardy, or my coworkers in a lurch...But, I don't owe my employer anything more than they owe me.

Job/income stability ?

There are a lot better ways of ensuring that that than working yourself silly. Ensuring you have significant savings, skills, connections, being prepared to switch jobs, and being good at negotiations will result in far better results. All of which require time outside of work.

Theres nothing wrong fullfilling your agreed work hours, with a reasonable expected work amout and spending time with family.

What makes you think your CEO's income is a guarantee for job security?

This has nothing to do with founders making or not making money. It's simple matter of respect for the people you do business with. Consider a simple example of someone hiring you to build them a wall around their garden.

Sure, you could take their money and do the worst possible job you can. Do you think this is a good idea? The owner ends up with a crappy wall and you end up with a bad reputation.

Everyone has things outside of work, like family, that are more important than work. That's not justification for doing the minimum you can do.

> But if you are passionate about making a change in the world

For most, a job is about surviving in this world.

Who was asking for your sympathy?