> If I wasn't paid, I wouldn't work for them.

That's great, but useful to know not everyone thinks the same. When I transitioned to software development (from basically random "whatever pays my rent" jobs), besides my first software job, they were all because I liked the particular product in some way or another, and what the compensation was is basically the least interesting thing for me.

Of course, some level of base payment is needed, because I still needed to pay rent, but if I was choosing between two jobs where one was utterly boring but paid 3 times more than a fascinating job, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat. And no, I'm just an individual contributor who wants to like what I work with, not an executive, manager or similar.

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mystraline 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The hypothetical situation you set up is interesting, in that past a base amount of money to survive and thrive, that you would choose the more intellectually stimulating position. And I do get that.

For me, if the hours were equal, I would choose the higher paying one. And then, I would create and make outside of work. And since I have that much higher wage, it could be a jump start on my own business.

And, enough money can buy independenance in that you can get this flexibility of doing as you choose.

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diggan 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> For me, if the hours were equal, I would choose the higher paying one. And then, I would create and make outside of work. And since I have that much higher wage, it could be a jump start on my own business.

Yeah, I guess I've been lucky to be able to chose daily jobs in the past that basically gives me what you would create outside of work, except I got a fixed payment each month for doing something I really enjoyed. So I never had the need to do that stuff outside of work to derive enjoyment of most of my time, which I guess is my top priority and been most of my life.

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duped 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That's reasonable, but signalling this to a startup during hiring is going to be a negative. There are three kinds of capital they get to play with, cash, equity, and culture. Cash is the least pliable of the three to them, equity the least liquid, but culture is actually something they can control.

If you have a team full of people who are just there for the paycheck, the only thing that will keep them there is increasing the paycheck. Which startups can't do in a crunch.

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baq 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Culture is smoke and mirrors. When investors say frog, founders jump and guess who gets the cultural shaft then.

Better to be thinking in transactional terms from the get go especially in early startups, where majority of total comp is an illiquid call option.

	▲	duped 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I mean it's not smoke and mirrors, when I'm picking between jobs I'm strongly considering the people I'm spending 35-40% of my waking hours interacting with. If I cared solely about maximizing personal returns I wouldn't work for startups.

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mystraline 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]

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evantbyrne 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> but if I was choosing between two jobs where one was utterly boring but paid 3 times more than a fascinating job, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat.

I chose my current job against competing offers because it was a good thing for the world, but I would not have taken significantly reduced pay for it. Let me tell you why: nobody that insists on paying you below market rates is going to treat you right. Some of the worst professional interactions I've ever dealt with involved high ranking individuals at nonprofits. These were orgs may have had genuinely good missions, but also paid rank and file employees quite poorly. On the other side, the 3x above market rate job is just a fantasy. I could believe it if you were talking about a 20% bonus.

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matwood 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I hear you, and I've never solely chased money either. But, we unfortunately live in world driven by money, and if I'm going to pour myself into work I want to be compensated appropriately. I also have a huge issue with feeling like I'm getting taken advantage of. So, what I have done is try to find jobs where those things align somewhat.