Ask HN: Is passion a fair thing to ask for from an employee?

[rameshnid]

I mean when you are a startup and can't make decent payments as salaries, can one really expect the developer to be passionate? Or maybe it's because I am based out of a third world country where salary trumps everything. Or am I dealing with the wrong set of people.

[chime]

* If you want low performance, give me low money.

* If you want high performance, give me high money.

* If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing.

You can buy my performance i.e. time with money. You can buy my passion i.e. commitment with reciprocation. If you give me typical market wages without profit sharing, don't expect anything beyond typical performance without commitment.

[rkalla]

There are some excellent studies out there that suggest this to be false.

One source[1] showed that:

- For highly creative jobs, respect and autonomy to function and just enough $ to cover comfortable living expenses produced the best results.

- As you add more money, the performance for these jobs decreased.

AND

- For highly repetitive jobs, performance increased with pay almost linearly.

- Offering more autonomy for lower pay in these types of jobs lowered performance.

Programming is a highly creative job. While you are making very logical assumptions (more $ == more work) I would argue that after the first month or so, that would no longer be the case.

You would then just be equating (more $ == more HOURS working) but not necessarily producing.

The findings of the study did hinge on the person seeking autonomy to make enough to cover their living expenses such that the concern for money was off the table.

Really interesting stuff.

I think from my own experience, after the honeymoon period of the giant paycheck wears off, this tends to be absolutely true.

As for passion, it has to come from the top down.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates...

Thanks to yengz for the reminder where this study came from!

[bugsy]

The "excellent studies", which engineering management uses to claim that low salaries, but enough to survive, are optimal, are a crock. Where are the top CEOs making just enough to survive?

Here is the flaw. If you are properly compensated and don't have any other options, giving you a big fat raise doesn't improve your productivity, that's true and that's what the studies measure. Hey are you a developer? Here's an extra ten bucks, will you now come up with a better algorithm? No, of course not, because money doesn't make you a better developer, just as paying existing public school teachers more doesn't make them any less severely incompetent.

However, if you want to attract more productive people in the first place, you have to pay them more money because there is a competitive environment. The "excellent studies" try to prevent readers from noticing that that's not what they looked into, and it's clear they do this intentionally.

Do you think that Google would attract the same caliber of developers by paying what McDonalds pays its line workers? You must believe that if you really believe that these studies are correct in their claims that there is no advantage to paying more than survival wages.

The simple fact is that sustenance wages are not in fact ideal for attracting the best developers, designers, writers, actors and inventors.

If you don't recognize that, but continue to insist that the opposite is true, then you are intentionally seeking to deceive people.

[microarchitect]

I think you're conflating wages for "comfortable living" with "sustenance" wages.

[bugsy]

Mmmm, the actual amount isn't all that relevant to the argument. But as far as "comfortable living" goes, the average $90,000 salary in Silicon Valley, minus the high California tax burden, does not provide "comfortable living" when a run down 3 bedroom home costs on average $860,000, vastly above the ability of said $90,000 wage earner to afford. It barely provides sustenance living. This is why many of these average paid developers have 3-4 hour commutes from far away, and others are living packed 5 to a room, and few are able to attract a mate.

This is completely a different topic from the discussion though so I'd prefer not to continue with it, if you would like to, it would be best to start a new thread.

Developers in many other parts of the country can live comfortably with an average wage. But watch out if you get sick. Sickness is for the rich. As we found out last month, if you are a long term employee at Microsoft and you get brain cancer, they give you a bad review and then declare you ineligible for disability benefits. Shouldn't have gotten cancer!

My idea of comfortable living is you can afford a house, to marry, and to afford health care. Others may disagree, but I don't consider that to be even worth debating.

[microarchitect]

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said but my understanding of the studies that rkalla is talking about is that the extra $$$ won't make your life significantly better so you'd be willing to forgo that money for "better" (I'm being intentionally vague here) work. Obviously, in the situation you're referring to the extra money makes a big difference in quality of life.

Perhaps you're suggesting that there are no cases where this is true? (i.e., one will always be happier with the extra $$$).

[geekfactor]

Dan Pink's RSA talk came to mind for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

He mentions a couple of studies.

[subsection1h]

  There are some excellent studies out there that suggest this to be false.

He used the words "me" and "my". Unless those studies involved him, I think the results are worth little compared to his own experience. If he had used the words "people" and "they", I think the results of those studies would be more relevant.

[yangez]

Daniel Pink also has a book called Drive which goes into this in detail. Highly recommended read.

[rkalla]

Ahhh! Eric that is exactly where I got that info from, I couldn't place it, but I finished reading "Drive" a few months ago so that must be where it came from.

[mirkules]

There's a great quote:

Money is not a motivator. But lack of money is a demotivator.

(Unfortunately, I don't remember who said this. Anyone?)

[qntm]

I'd be willing to say it right now, since I agree with it.

[danellis]

Sounds like something Spolsky would say.

[jpdoctor]

> If you want loyalty/passion, give me equity/profit sharing.

This tactic works only until the employee knows a sufficient number of people that have been screwed out of their equity. Usually, that takes some time and experience.

In a related note, ever notice that most passionate employees are younger?

[cema]

On the surface, sounds logical. But somehow does not quite match my experience. Good professionals tend to perform better than the (ostensible) level of compensation they get.

[div]

A professional working at 50% of his capacity will often trump a junior working at 50% of his capacity.

Edit: I Don't know why I can't reply to the replies of this post.

What I meant to infer is that the parent to my post may have seen 'professionals' perform better than he would have expected them given their pay.

What I tried to reply is that this level of performance may still be the professional working at only 50% of capacity.

I was assuming that the amount the professional was being paid was relative to what that company would be paying everyone else. Which would lead me to conclude everyone was probably working at 50%.

Maybe that was a bit of a stretch on my behalf though :)

[citricsquid]

I think you meant to say junior working at 100% of his capacity; 50% to 50% makes no sense.

[mtviewdave]

Define "passion". Do you mean:

1. Someone who will respond to your above-and-beyond commitment to them (in compensation, tools, respect, etc.) with above-and-beyond results?

2. Someone who will give above-and-beyond results even when given lousy tools, a poor work environment, unrealistic expectations, and mediocre compensation?

#1 is fair to ask. #2 is not.

[jarrettcoggin]

I second this.

In my experience at a previous company, they upgraded every developer and QA engineer's workspace to have high-end hardware and dual 24" monitors (1920x1200, not the 1080p BS). Previously barely-missed deadlines were practically eliminated, better employee morale appeared, more innovative ideas started appearing, and various other things showed up.

All in all, this convinced me and I'm a firm believer in giving employees great tools and freedom to approach things in their own way. It shows that the company cares about you, and that goes a long way with employees and their performance backs that up.

[danilocampos]

I'm not sure that passion is something to ask for as much as it is something to look for.

Even making shitty wages, I can't hide my passion for my work. When I was 15, bagging groceries and helping people load up their cars, I couldn't restrain my passion for doing things well, and that was $6 an hour. If I'm getting paid something approaching a reasonable wage while working on my true creative passions of UI/UX? Forget about it — I'm on fire.

So I think it's worthwhile to look for people who have that energy. With the caveat that such energy has value and if you can't provide full-market cash compensation you need to make up for it with a cocktail of other benefits like flexibility, autonomy, work environment, equity, great employee-selected tools and indulgence/encouragement for people's specific ambitions.

[microarchitect]

I suspect you might be from India, so let me tell about a few things that bugged me about life as software developer in Bangalore.

I don't mind being paid below market but I definitely need something to make up for this. You could this (following in no particular order): (1) profit sharing (2) equity (3) a higher-than-market level of responsibility for a given experience level and (4) interesting work.

The other thing is that every time I start a new position I'm full of excitement and passion but this excitement drains out of me pretty quickly thanks to terrible decision making by the management, my discovery that I got lowballed on my offer or by others in the team being hired at levels disproportionate to their ability, or by my being forced to work on something completely different from what I promised when I was made the offer, or my discovery that the management are bunch of penny-wise pound-foolish cheapskates.

The TLDR here is that you need to be honest and extremely fair in your dealings. Always ask yourself whether you'd want to continue if you were in the employees position.

Don't ever fall into the trap of thinking that you are doing the employee a favor by giving them a job. Anybody worth hiring can pretty much get an offer with a phone call or two in the current hiring market.

[rameshnid]

Yes. We are based out of Mumbai. And the thing is we are offering everything mentioned on your list. I find the Indian developer to be more concerned about the salary.

The other issues you mentioned could be true in our case. We did give more responsibility to an inexperienced developer who has shown great initiative.

A good developer with commitment or a better developer who is all over the place?

Honestly development as a career is very hard, I have seen a lot of developers who cannot switch off, or focus on solving a specific problem. I think passion to solve a problem sometimes makes it easy for a developer to work on something for a decent amount of time and not try hacking the nxt shiny thing around.

[ChristianMarks]

I was passionate myself. Then a new non-technical VP was hired, and three of six directors were moved under the non-technical director the VP promoted. My title, and those of the others, went from director to Zweiter Beauftragter fur Administrative Fragen. Our job descriptions changed beyond recognition, for "flexibility", we were informed. My new supervisor informed me that I "solved my own problems"--a bad thing, apparently--and that I was "limited by what I know." I was required to attend unbelievably boring "change management" meetings, in which the entire department got to listen to the ephemera of Windows system administurbation and discuss the cleaning of digital bed pans. Whatever passion I had evaporated. I left a couple months later.

[vladd]

Being a good manager in the startup field is an extraordinary difficult thing to do.

Here's an awesome TED talk that you can watch which is a good introduction in the field - http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html - it shows that performance in creative fields can decrease when the payout is greater.

Salary is just one factor in job satisfaction, there are lots of other ways, most of them cheaper from a costs perspective, which can improve the "mood". Here's a list:

  - equity
  - 20% time (autonomy to work on self-driven projects)
  - a perceived notion of fairness (i.e. no bozos as managers,
  promotions done right on merit and payout/hierarchy that
  correlates with the actual job performance, not politics)
  - free drinks/food/catering (or at least joint cafeteria area
  for lunch bonding/discussions)
  - awesome hardware
  - high employee/manager ratio to avoid micro-management
  - a tech ladder allowing growth without becoming a manager

[crikli]

I think it depends on whether an employer views passion as a character trait or a byproduct. The distinction is very important.

I'm an employer (and a programmer) and I view passion as a byproduct of developers being properly incentivized to do something they find fascinating.

That incentive varies from programmer to programmer. Incentives can be cash, equity, profit sharing, flexible hours, encouragement and recognition, kick-ass equipment, a steady supply of new tech toys to play with, paid time and travel to conferences, etc.

The second aspect, of course, the truly hard one, is keeping people fascinated. Everything gets boring as hell eventually. As an employer I actually find this harder than determining what incentives people respond to because I'm personally aware of how quickly programmers get bored.

[grayrest]

> Incentives can be cash, equity, profit sharing, flexible hours, encouragement and recognition, kick-ass equipment, a steady supply of new tech toys to play with, paid time and travel to conferences, etc.

Autonomy, autonomy autonomy...

[trafficlight]

Do you try to keep your programmers interested for long periods of time? Or do you think that every programmer has a finite amount of time at your company and that they will move on after a few years?

[crikli]

Well, I've only been in my own business for three years and employing for not yet a couple so I don't really know yet.

The job I had before I started this business I always told my superiors that after three years a dev was going to start getting "the itch." I was only at that job for 4.5 years so I don't have the experience to know what really happens, but I did see guys start getting wanderlust at about three year, plus or minus. But I always felt that had more to do with unclear opportunities for growth, "just ok" equipment, and an uninspiring salary increase schedule.

So...I don't know. My gut says most will move on.

[trafficlight]

I was passionate for a previous employer, but they burned it out of me. Their inability to make decisions and leaps necessary to really be successful ate away at me. Those things affected me personally, and as an employee, that just can't happen. It's not worth it.

[rameshnid]

I can emapathize with that. I do believe that could be the case with my team. Some of the guys came from another startup where they were not equity holders.

Does this happen a lot in the industry. If it does happen frequently then it makes more sense for a honest founder to always recruit/ collaborate with younger programmers.

[veyron]

You can't ask for passion from an employee unless you are giving them a meaningful equity stake or paying above market rates. Quite frankly, if you dont give a good stake or a great salary, employees won't naturally feel like going the extra mile.

In my experience, most employees feel that pushing themselves won't actually accrete any value to themselves, and that really kills any sort of passion.

[sjs]

Good people are often passionate to begin with. If they lose their passion that's probably the fault of their employer.

If they're not passionate to begin with maybe they need to be motivated. Money does it for some people but it's not everything. Interest is very important too.

[egypturnash]

Sell me on your project, infect me with your own passion for it. (You do have a lot of belief in your project, right? It's not just something you think might work, maybe? If your idea is mediocre and you know it then this ain't gonna happen.)

Then pay me enough to make it worth my while. I have my own projects that I'm passionate about and there's so many hours in the day; every minute I'm spending working on your idea is a minute I'm deferring my own visions. You want me to pour my time into your idea? I'd better get more than just enough money to live on - I want to be able to not worry about looking for work for a while after I'm done with your project, so I can spend my time working on my own stuff that matters intensely to me and me alone. If you can't give me tons of money then I'd better have a serious stake in the eventual profits, and you'd better not want me to work on it for very long.

[blader]

Passion isn't something your employees can just choose to give you once asked, but it is something you can choose to give them by providing a meaningful purpose, the opportunity to learn new things, and the freedom to do great work.

[Qa8BBatwHxK8Pu]

> Passion isn't something your employees can just choose to give you once asked

funny many organizations extort that level of commitment from its workers. for a short time "obey me or get fired" may work, but in long term it'll kill the workspace morale, motivation and innovation.

[rkalla]

I don't think it is a fair thing to ask for, but it is certainly a fair thing for you to look for.

It is the job of the company to impart passion, set an example and hold on to the people that get behind the company vision.

Without that vision or passion from the founders, none of the employees will have it and you are left with salary trumping everything (because there is nothing else, except maybe a small group of people you like hanging out with).

If you are passionate and convey that clearly, passion will trump salary for the right people, and those are the ones you want on your team.

[pnathan]

"can't make decent payments as salaries"

Yeah, that's a dealbreaker. I need to pay my bills. If you can't do that, sorry, but I have to keep my housing.

[MattLaroche]

Passion cannot be faked. And you can't buy true passion. Even if someone offered me $10 billion a year to do something, I'd be passionate about the money and not about my job (well, unless my job is interesting). As others have said, if you can't give high base pay, give equity. Heck, give equity anyway. Ownership helps with passion.

Give someone interesting an interesting problem. Don't hire assholes (in fact, fire assholes). Create a community where genuine mistakes aren't a big deal to their employment (and avoid cover your ass) and the passion will come. Support creativity, support big ideas, support some of the random, one off ideas that come out of creative people (easter eggs, hack weeks) and it'll pay for itself.

[capdiz]

Being from a third world country myself it is really difficult. Its even worse if your society is really corrupt. First its difficult to trade equity coz everyone is out to make an easy buck and its really hard to believe anyone however genuine they look or sound. Second, most third world countries are cash driven economies no credit cards and shit. But there is hope if you (or to) find someone who really believes in your idea. Its basicaly a hard sale. Best option is to build a very good reputation at Uni/college or your first workplace. Guaranteed, even if your idea is wack, your rep will get you the best employees/co-founders at minimal cost.

[bugsy]

"can't make decent payments as salaries"

Conversation doesn't really need to go beyond this point. It's like asking "Should my woman cook and clean for me even though I beat her each day?" Really, the cooking and cleaning is not the issue in that conversation.

[jkmcf]

In my experience, you can grow and retain quality people with compensation, practices, and other incentives, but you won't make them passionate about their job this way.

There's passion about what you do (passionate about their field, tools), and passion about what you are doing (healthcare, education, making money). These are high energy, all-in types who live their jobs. They are also few in numbers.

You can hire and fire based on displayed passion, but I'm not sure it can be taught. They either have it or they don't.

Also, don't confuse passion with work ethic, which is (probably) equally valuable, but more of a character trait that can be applied to many different things.

[pshapiro]

Why would you want passion? The thing you should look for is interest. Passion only means that they don't have the necessary information to tell if what they are doing is reckless or not.

[rameshnid]

Interesting.let me clarify my case. What I have seen so far is that most developers around want to ship 3 products a year for 3 different industries. They are all over the place. Cannot commit to solving a specific problem for a specific industry for an extended period of time.

So my thinking is maybe if the guys are passionate about the problem/ industry and not just interested in learning to do a lot of stuff, we would have a better shot at succeeding.

Correct me if there is a flaw in my understanding.

[dougws]

There is a meaningful distinction to be made between passion about programming and passion about your product. The former is probably a necessity for good programmers, while the latter might not be necessary and might be hard to maintain without granting equity and/or having a really, really cool product.

[rush-tea]

If you are hiring in a 3rd world country, be careful as the law is not with you. A competitor can buy your developer code and run away with it without you are not being able to do anything about it.

so yeah, in 3rd world country, to be passionate and motivated, money mostly talks. Sad but true

[tayip9]

This might fit in with Dan Pink's talk on 'Drive':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Passion can be driven by incentives outside of salary.

[bugsy]

I haven't watched all of those RSA videos but I've seen quite a few. It's amazing how every one I have seen is outlandish propaganda that it seems no one would fall for, yet I stand completely alone in this viewpoint.

[petervandijck]

I think it's a fair thing to look for in an employee. Who you hire is up to you.

[trevelyan]

Are you hiring an expat or a local? Which country?

[molecule]

If the market supports it.

[RandallBrown]

I think it's probably a required thing for every employee.

[rameshnid]

I know. But is it really true, I fail to understand how a developer can be passionate about some business and yet launch 2-5 products a year. Is that passion for the business/ industry or passion to develop skills?

Most of the good programmers do it, right? Work on 4 products a year in multiple industries.

Should you hire someone who is passionate about the cause or one who is passionate about code(read growth/career)

[RandallBrown]

Obviously both is best, but you're not always going to find someone passionate about the business. You should never compromise on finding someone passionate about the code though.

[shriphani]

In return you must offer:

1. Access to CS literature (any lit. not just titles specific to the field we're in). 2. Encouragement for improving skills. 3. A culture that promotes interaction between people. 4. Machines that are fast, build quickly. 5. Willing to pay for a personal license to dev-tools. 6. Provide a very small percentage of company time to drop the main task at hand and pick up something completely unrelated to hack on.

This should be sufficient to ensure that your employees value their jobs and would rather continue than leave.