

Caring about things - romymisra
http://romymisra.com/caring-about-things/

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porker
I'd like this to be true, but I think it's a very utopian ideal. If people
care as much as the founders do about the company, they're going to get very
disillusioned when the founders head in a different direction to the one
they'd take the company _and they get no say in it_. Because although they're
as invested in the company as the founders, they don't have the power.

I also wonder why (apart from the charity sector) employees would be that
invested. They don't get the financial rewards or the kudos that the founders
do, so why invest their soul in someone else's problem?

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jared314
> why invest their soul in someone else's problem?

Depending on their age, they might not know better. Young developers are sold
the ideal of changing the world through passion, but still end up as just
employees. I still remember the first time a company offered me options
instead of an annual raise, and a more experienced coworker quietly informed
me why they did that. My enthusiasm was quickly brought down to earth.

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skyraider
Wait, why did they offer you options instead of a raise? I just want to hear
why that reason tempered your enthusiasm. (I don't get excited about options
since I have to buy them, but they can be more incentivizing, at least for me,
than salary in the rare case that they are given on fair terms.)

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akanet
I agree with a lot of stuff said here - caring, or intrinsic motivation, is
one of the most powerful attributes you can hire for. There are, however, a
plethora of other attributes out there, and restricting your potential hires
to the tiny subset of people that are as insanely motivated as yourself seems
like a recipe for never hiring anyone and paradoxically never actually solving
any problems.

Specifically I don't think points 3 and 4 are quite on the money - how much
you care is often based on how much you perceive people care about you, and
equity can be a pretty big signal of that. Additionally, I think people who
care can be quite contentious.

Still, a good enough point to talk about. Apparent enthusiasm is one of the
best things you can select for, when you see it, and it can make up for a lot
of other things that might be lacking.

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nikatwork
> Additionally, I think people who care can be quite contentious.

People who care will challenge the status quo. This is often deeply unpopular,
especially in larger orgs. If you don't empower the people who care to make
positive changes to the status quo, then those people will give up and stop
caring. And then probably leave.

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infinity0
You can learn all the math in the 'verse, but you take a boat in the air that
you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the
worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's
hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.

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legulere
Please place spaces after , : and - and reduce the width of the text. It's
very hard to read this way.

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jamesdelaneyie
Caring about typography :')

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airtonix
While this is a great thing, make sure you support these valuable team members
by ensuring the rest of your team also care just as much.

I've had the pleasure to be a part of a team where I was given pretty much
free license to do as I saw fit simply because I cared as much about the
product as the founders.

But hiring just one or two champions and filling in the gaps with mere
enthusiasm or brute force is going to put an enormous strain on your
champions.

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mathattack
I used to hate campaigns that would just "Raise Awareness" because I thought
that raising awareness never fixed anything. After a while I realized it was
the first step to getting people to care. Presenting a solution before anyone
cares doesn't fix anything either. I'd put "Do what it takes to solve the
problem" instead of a blurb about IQ, but otherwise I agree.

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jamesdelaneyie
This is well good. There is just one thing that can be an issue with people
who care. Are they caring about the right things at the right time? Suppose
that's the manager's role to help focus the team.

