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by seraph787 5044 days ago
Why don't developers get commissions then? There are plenty of papers out there showing monetary reward does not improve people's performance. I have no idea how sales should be paid though
3 comments

http://www.ericsink.com/bos/Closing_the_Gap_Part_1.html

In sales is relatively easy to measure performance. A sales guy's commisions should be a factor of the value they add to the company based on how much they sold.

Obviously, they'll be slightly loose cannons (lying to get sales), but that's part of the cost of having them.

You could just hire sales guys and not pay them a commission, but ... their intrinsic motivation will be close to zero (would you want to do their job?) and it's too hard to manage them without incentives.

> There are plenty of papers out there showing monetary reward does not improve people's performance.

So?

You pay people to get them to work on what you want them to do.

pg has an essay that talks about some of these issues:

http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

It's worth a read, esp. for anyone who hasn't read it yet. The part under the heading "Working Harder" is especially relevant.