

Ask YC: Do what you love and the money will follow? - bprater

In another thread this was brought up and I thought it might be a good thought experiment.<p>The refrain, "Do what you love and the money will follow," is repeatedly frequently.<p>Is it truth? Can you think of examples of doing something you'd love but it not provide for your financially? ("I love living in a log cabin in Alaska!")<p>Can you point to examples in your own life where you did follow this advice -- and it didn't pan out?<p>And if you share, maybe you can give us hackers an attempt to figure out why it didn't work out -- and how we can improve our own odds as we follow our passion in the future.
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mattmaroon
I played poker for a living for over 5 years. I never really cared for it, but
it paid very well, and so I told myself that if I just did it for a short
while, I'd have enough money saved up that I could do whatever I wanted for
the next 100.

While that is a solid theory, what happened was that I grew to hate it so much
that I never spent enough hours to save up retirement-type amounts of money. I
also became largely desensitized to money (when you can win or lose $10k in a
day with ease, it's not too hard to convince yourself to buy a $500 camera)
and spent way too much.

Eventually I realized that for those reasons, I was never going to get there,
no matter how good I had gotten or how profitable the game was, so I left to
do a startup. The pay is pretty low now, but I'm happier, because I enjoy the
process rather than the results, and there is some realistic chance of a
windfall at the end.

I think the optimal strategy is to pick something you enjoy but that can pay
the bills. Most people could probably enjoy multiple professions. Choose the
one you would enjoy that pays the best.

~~~
azanar
>I think the optimal strategy is to pick something you enjoy but that can pay
the bills. Most people could probably enjoy multiple professions. Choose the
one you would enjoy that pays the best.

I think this is pretty good advice, but with a caveat. Enjoyment is not just a
boolean function, but varies from unbelievably painful to completely
enjoyable. I think is more of a two-dimensional optimization problem than a
simple matter of picking the maximal paying element from the column named 'fun
and interesting'. Doing java development at a large company and doing python
development at a small company would both rank 'fun and interesting' relative
to the rest of the total set of available professions, but I would still
seriously consider the python position, even though the java position is bound
to pay a lot better on average. But maybe you meant that, and I am just
misreading.

------
iamelgringo
Best piece of advice I every received from a poster:
<http://despair.com/potential.html>

So, I've really hated my day job for years (ER nurse). It just paid too darn
well. And, I've tried a whole bunch of things as possibilities to change
careers: theology, philosophy, world religions, painting, sculpting, computer
graphics, animation, furniture design, interior architecture, visual effects,
video editing... And by trying, I mean, researching the hell out of it, taking
formal training or actively studying on my own for more than a year.

Why did I do these things? Because I believed the "Do what you love, and money
will follow" mantra. Problem: I wasn't making money doing what I loved, and
therefore I had to keep doing what I hated for money, which was being a nurse.
I was not willing to do the starving artist/philosopher thing for too long.

Solution: I found something that I like reasonably well, allows me to be
creative and think widely and that has a potential to make a decent amount of
cash, with potentially a huge financial upside: programming and starting my
own business.

The chief problem with the "Do what you love and the money will follow"
mantra, is that it essentially paints the career problem and money problem as
a binary issue. Either do what you love, or do what you hate. There are many
choices in between those things that have varying degrees of financial
outcomes.

Another thought: If you do what you love, and feel continually pressured for
cash, there is a lot of pressure to compromise yourself and your loves for
money. Some handle that better than others. For example, there are a lot of
people who start out wanting to be musicians, painters, artists or writers who
try to do it for money. The problem comes when the rent is continuously due,
and you're broke. You're then stuck with being a writer/painter/musician and
needing to make cash. Do you write/paint/compose for purely commercial
projects (like an ad agency), or do you only write/paint/compose what you
love?

Finally: Speaking from experience, spend some time in LA, and you'll come to
the conclusion that there are more people who are trying to chase their dreams
and be actors/directors/filmmakers than the market will bear. This leads to a
huge culture of abusing the people trying to get their break in those
industries. After years of work and studing 3D modeling, animation and image
compositing, I finally got offered an entry level job at Sony Pictures
Imageworks (Big film VFX house in LA). Salary: $20 an hour, minimum of 60
hours per week if not 80 to 100, and you get laid off after the current movie
finishes production in 4 months. You're then unemployed until the next round
of FX films start post-production. Why did workers tolerate this? Because
there were many more people vying for those jobs than there were positions
available.

------
Zarathu
Logically speaking, sure.

If you do what you're passionate about, you're sure to develop a strong set of
skills for that particular subject. A strong set of skills for a subject _with
a market_ makes you good competition, at a reasonable price.

As for myself, I remember writing a keylogger in Visual Basic when I was 11
because I wanted to steal my sister's AIM password. I loved everything about
software development, and still do. Years later, I'm making 6 figures with
Rails.

~~~
pietro
So did you get her password?

~~~
Zarathu
Yes. It was "paparoach", and I had very elegant conversations with her
friends. I'm sure they had no idea it wasn't my sister.

>.>

------
gcheong
Some problems I have with this saying:

1.It implies the money part flows effortlessly from the "do what you love"
part.

From what I've seen, people do something they love and then try and find a way
to make money with it. Sometimes they are successful, and sometimes not, but
in any case it involves effort to go from doing what you love to doing what
you love for money.

2.It implies people have one passion or one reason to be on this earth. That
is crap. You can have several passions or you may have none. I have many
interests but I can't say for sure that I have a passion about any one thing -
yet I've been able to make money following my interests and make money not
following my interests.

3.It's often taken as meaning that making money doing something other than
when you are doing what you love is somehow a lesser choice. Maybe so, maybe
not. Should I fault the programmer whose real passion is ski-boarding because
they'd rather make more money or make money doing something they know they can
make money at and then use it to enjoy their passion in their spare time
rather than making less money as a ski-bum or taking a risk in what may be a
dead end venture? I don't think I can.

4.It implies people can't or shouldn't love the pursuit of money. This might
be true insofar as money itself is just a store of value or a means to an end.
The problem I have is that anyone with a desire for just starting businesses
regardless of the product seems to be included, which I think is a wrong
categorization. Businesses create wealth, money is just the representation of
the wealth created by business. I see nothing wrong with pursuing business for
business sake because to be successful in business, for most people, means you
are creating value.

So my conclusion is that this saying is more useful for selling books than as
real advice.

------
xenophanes
It's better advice than this:

Do what you hate for money and the love will follow.

~~~
andreyf
s/what/who

Still bad advice...

------
DaniFong
My mother is an excellent writer and novelist, but the market has completely
dried up for that. Nobody really reads any more.

She's turned to writing scripts though, there seems to be more traction there.

~~~
unalone
I don't know if nobody reads. Nobody reads modern books, perhaps.

It's tough to say something meaningful in a medium that's existed for
centuries. You know? So much has already been done that now the medium is
shrinking. The people who do remain are less likely to be as talented, because
the really talented people have moved on to other things.

Television, for instance. The last 10 years has seen better TV shows than ever
existed in the past. The best-written thing I've come across in the last two
years was The Wire. I'd compare the quality of writing in that to anything up-
to-and-including Shakespeare. And it did stuff that you _couldn't_ have done
in a novel. Or in a movie, for that matter.

Mind you, my all-time-favorite novel was published in 2006. And Mark Z
Danielewski is still innovating within the form: his _House of Leaves_ is a
classic, and it was written just 8 years ago. But those writers are rarer.
There's less to be done within the form of pure prose than there was even 40
years ago.

~~~
lliiffee
_my all-time-favorite novel was published in 2006_

The Road? (I'm extrapolating from what you say about The Wire.)

~~~
unalone
I don't know why, but I really can't stand McCarthy. I've tried again and
again, and the man is so imprecise with his language. I want to like him,
because I like interpretations of his work by, say, the Coen Brothers, but
I'll read a few pages of his book and just not be able to take it anymore.

No, my favorite book is a novel called _Adverbs_ , and it's by Daniel Handler,
who wrote the kid's Series of Unfortunate Events. I've read it far too many
times and I still love it, though now I spend a few months between reading it.
And it's just incredibly beautiful. It's a collection of 17 short stories that
are all interrelated, and it's playful with language to a fault. It's tough
reading the first few times, but it's so worth grasping, because it does stuff
I've never seen in other books.

So I don't think it's the best book ever written, but it's enjoyable and it's
in love with words, and far too few people have heard it.

------
tom_rath
If what you love is building finance-directed B2B desktop apps then, yeah,
you're golden.

I think the key is directing your passion in a broad enough way that you can
satisfy an unaddressed market demand. If you love building challenging
software, there are many ways you can pragmatically apply that passion if you
cast your net wide enough.

On the other hand, if you love building socially directed news-ranking sites
with clickable arrows, your options will be somewhat limited.

------
jaxn
If the goal is to get rich, then do what creates value for others. If the goal
is to enjoy every day then do what you love. The luckiest among us are able to
figure out how to combine the two and create value while doing something they
are passionate about.

------
rw
Did Gandhi get rich? Does it matter?

~~~
mattmaroon
Would you want to trade places with Gandhi? I wouldn't.

~~~
ntoshev
You are missing the point. Ghandi wouldn't trade places with you either.

~~~
mattmaroon
You are missing the point. Saying that getting rich doesn't matter because
Ghandi didn't get rich is silly. You could use that argument, with some hero,
in favor of anything.

~~~
ntoshev
Who said getting rich doesn't matter? It is what matters to you that is
important, for all values of you. Being rich didn't matter to Ghandi. If you
do what you love, you are likely to be happy, even if you are not rich. If you
just love money, I suppose doing what you love is equivalent to getting rich.

Why does the thought that many people may consider Ghandi's life to be more
meaningful than your own upset you so much? Boy, you have an ego...

For the record, Ghandi's accomplishment is not "putting his name in the
history books", but rather "being spiritual and political leader of hundreds
of millions of people and having a great impact on their lives".

~~~
mattmaroon
This is just plain getting stupid. You've wandered so far off the topic in a
maze of misunderstanding.

And the original poster implied it doesn't matter. And I pointed out that just
because it doesn't matter to Ghandi (if it didn't) doesn't mean it shouldn't
matter to others. And somehow you managed to derive from that that I am upset
because a billion Indians like Ghandi better than me. Brilliant.

Gotta love Sunday conversations.

------
andyking
What if you're not remotely arsed about getting mega-rich, but just want to
get by and earn enough money to survive doing what you love? I'd rather live
frugally and work on something fun than be loaded but despising what I spend
ten hours a day doing.

------
crpatino
This is of course oversimplified. The argument seems to me like: 1) If you
love what you do, you will care. You will go the extra mile to do it right. 2)
After a couple of years of doing what you love, and caring, and improving
every day, you will be very good at what you do. You will be able to beat most
competitors (who don't really care and are in for a quick buck anyway). 3)
Assuming your clients can tell the difference, you will never lack work. 4)
Assuming your market is big enough to support you and your more important
competitors, you will be able to pick clients, and rise your fees, and have
lots of work anyway. 5) Then money follows the good work.

Now, there are 2 big assumptions here. One is that the world will be able to
figure out how great you are and how lame are most of the others. If they
cannot, or doesn't care, you are in a lemon market. The scam artists grow rich
and the good practicioners get exploited. Not a nice place to be, unless what
you love is take advantage of other people.

The other big assumption is that there is enough demand for what you love to
do. By example, if you love classic music and want to be a piano concertist,
good luck with that. There is not enough demand for that skill to support but
a handfull of performers. Unless your talent is that of a genius or have all
the right connections, you will not survive long enough to actually learn to
play well. Again, not a nice place to be.

What you want to do if not to do what you like the most. You want to ask
yourself what are those things that you like. Get a list of a dozen items. Cut
half of those that seem like lemon markets, the cut again by half those whose
market is to small.

You will end up with a couple of solid options of what you can realistically
pursue.

------
oakmac
Happiness and money are not correlated.

You are always 100% in control of your emotions: the choice to be happy is up
to you regardless of what you're doing or what's happening to you. Money (or
value) will come from following fundamental principles of success: diligence,
hard work, honesty, etc. You often find the two together, but neither is
required for the other.

For more information read Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" and Viktor
Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning."

~~~
zcrar70
I'm not sure I agree that you're always 100% in control of your emotions. If
you think you're in control, they're not really emotions anymore; you've
suppressed them, and replaced them with what you wanted to feel, which is fine
but isn't really the same thing. I do agree that your general outlook will
have great influence on whether you are happy or not though.

Generally speaking, I think you're more likely to be happy if you are honest
about your emotions and then follow them in deciding what to do. Then it won't
really matter if you make money or not, because you'll be happy to do what
you're doing (unless you decide that making money is a goal in and of itself,
in which case you'd need to make money in order to feel that you've
accomplished what you set out to do).

------
andr
A basic issue with this is that people love doing many different things (and
are curious to try new stuff all the time), so there is little time to get
particularly good at them. It's hard to make money from things you are not
good at.

------
bayareaguy
If you only focus on doing what you love then there's no guarantee money will
follow. However if you are able to connect with others who appreciate what you
love to do enough to sponsor your doing it, then there will be the _potential_
for money to follow. It is also necessary to balance time between attending to
the things that can generate this potential and the things necessary to make
that distibution channel sufficiently efficient. Ignoring your channel just
means your potential for money goes to waste or ends up making someone else
wealthy instead of you.

------
snitko
I think it's not all that clear with the question. How much money? If we're
talking about money you get from your regular job and you feel okay about
working for someone - then the answer is yes. If you feel you don't like
working for someone and will only be happy working on your own stuff - then
the answer is "not necessary". From what I've seen and heard, good money is a
result of different (for each person) combination of professional skills,
business skills, persistence and luck. And you never know if your
combinations' going to make you rich.

------
CyberED
When you do what you really love, you don't count the money. Your pay-off is
from the sense of accomplishment. Doing something for love and wishing that
the money follows really depends on who else gains value from what you do.
E.g. living in a log cabin in Alaska - minimal payback. Creating, building and
selling iPods - huge payback. The difference being not many people are chuffed
at you living in a log cabin. Lot of people are very chuffed at having the
music they love when they want it and having a cool gadget to play it on.

------
tlrobinson
Or if what you love isn't very lucrative, make lots of money by whatever means
necessary (within reason) to allow you to do what you love later.

The problem with that is if you take a long time to make enough money to do
that, you've just wasted all that time doing something you don't love.

------
tallanvor
You don't have to love your job in order to be happy. If it provides you with
the money you need and still leaves you time to do the things you love, is it
horrible not to love it?

And what if loving your job results in you neglecting other important parts of
your life?

------
mhartl
You need three things: skill, love, and market.

    
    
      skill + love - market = hobby
      skill - love + market = job
      skill + love + market = career
    

(The other combinations are less interesting and are left as an exercise to
the reader.)

------
Rabidmonkey1
I like Mike Rowe's advice on working:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-udsIV4Hmc>

------
arockwell
Its true as long as money != unfathomable riches.

------
zitterbewegung
I rather do something I love and not get any money at all than doing something
I hate for all of the money in the world.

------
critke
It might - if anything it'll help you get through the long hard slog to the
pot of gold - if there is one at all.

------
voidpointer
Yet another version: Do what you love and happiness will follow. How about
that?

------
abstractbill
Do what you love _and figure out how to make money follow_.

------
Tichy
Maybe it works if you learn to love making money.

------
brianm
Has worked for me, so far, but I love hacking...

------
cellis
Follow the money, and you'll love what you do.

------
Rod
Quoting Austrian actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000):

 _"I know why most people never get rich. They put the money ahead of the job.
If you just think of the job, the money will automatically follow. This never
fails."_

So, do what you love. Excel at what you do. One day you might get rich... or
NOT. Either way, you will have led a productive and interesting life. Cheers.

~~~
jaxn
I am glad I didn't take this advice when I was a dishwasher.

~~~
andreyf
Not necessarily true - if you were _really_ passionate about washing dishes,
maybe you would have started a dish washing company, organized a dish washing
union, or whatever :-P

~~~
jaxn
"Excel at what you do" is not passion. It is admirable to do the current job
the best you can, but I think a discontent with the current job has fueled
many entrepreneurs.

~~~
Rod
Quite true. I would argue that loving what one does is necessary to attain
excellence. But it certainly is not sufficient.

------
Allocator2008
If doing what you love has a market, yes, the money will follow. If doing what
you love does not have a market, it doesn't matter how much you love it. For
example, there is a market for hybrid cars. There is not a market for flying
cars, even though the relevant technology - fold-up wings and so on - is
available. So if you love making hybrids, great, the money will indeed follow.
If you love making flying cars, sorry, no market there. So the trick I guess
is to find something you love, that also has a market. Not the easiest thing
in the world to figure out.

