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August 6, 2007
I moved back to New York City at the end of last year because of my wife's work, and despite my love for my coworkers and the work they do. But the decision was made really easy by the fact that I was spending too much time with other people in the Bay Area and especially in Silicon Valley who apparently have different motivations from my friends and peers.
The New York Times gives us a depressingly close view of the emptiness of their world. I struggle to find a nice way to say this, but if your motivation isn't to make something meaningful, if you don't understand what it is to yearn for the creative impetus that is the core driver of interesting, meaningful, innovative work, or if your motivation is a big pile of money that won't ever make your children happy, then I implore you, I beseech you: Get out now. Clear room again for those of us that do it because we love it, that did it when there was no money in it, that can't not do it. Life's too short to work on something so insufficiently world-changing. And you're just getting in the way of those of us with work to do.
4:47 AM
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Very well put! I agree with you 100%.
Interesting thought. I must say that passion brought me into my industry but the money is what kept me here and ultimately kept me working hard in the beginning. The beginning, when times were rough; when my opinion didn't matter, my salary was next to nothing and the ladder seemed ever growing as my position on it stayed the same (at the bottom).
Doing what you do for the right reason is one thing; admitting that money has an influence shouldn't be a negative though. Money motivated to keep pressing on when times were tough -- my passion influenced and pushed me to be as creative and innovative as possible to produce amazing results (regardless of the money).
My point is that money can be a motivator -- it makes a hell of an incentive. However, passion should be the drive that powers what we ultimately produce. Profiting off your passion is smart -- as long as it is your passion that is driving and not the money!
Don't you know?! He who dies with the most toys wins!
Get out now? Folks looking for a moment of chat and a nice (free) cup of coffee in SF, NYC and beyond could check out the Likemind coffee morning. www.likemind.us
Can I get an AMEN!? All those piles of money just get in the way.
I'm going to graduate law school in 1 year. When I read this post and that NYTimes article I felt a kind of sickening realization of familiarity. The tech geeks putting in 60-70 hrs/wk in the Silicon Valley office parks have basically the same mentality as the law geeks putting in 60-70 hrs/wk in office towers in every major coastal city.
lol @ thumbnail pic showing Rafi. Did not realize that was linked to mybloglog, which I think I deleted my profile from.
I've spent a great deal of time in the Northern California area on vacation and business, and it's one of the more unique areas I have ever seen. There are some very creative and inspiring forces at work there, but Silicon Valley also has it's share of greedy capitalists looking to exploit that creativity for all (and perhaps more) than it's worth.
I have to wonder if areas that have similar creative profiles (certain areas around Seattle, Austin, Boston, and NYC come to mind) all suffer from the same result when Creativity, Greed, and Motivation are all Venn'ed out.