In the startup world we know that the strongest motivation is internal, and that despite the cultural expectation of long hours, we can't really force the issue. Instead we have to hire people that are internally motivated by passion for what they do, and a desire for greatness. If, in a startup, you have to crack the whip you've probably already failed.
In the corporate world you don't have the luxury of hiring only the best and brightest most internally motivated people. There's the law of averages for one thing, but also there tends to be a lot more grunt work, bureaucratic overhead, and the individual has much less opportunity to make a difference anyway. There are good reasons for these things; once you have a profitable, repeatable business, bureaucracy and processes ensure the money keeps coming in and mistakes are learned from on an institutional level, there is less incentive to innovate because the risk-reward structure is completely different.
Despite the fact that we know this is bad for morale, we don't know that morale and intrinsic motivation were getting this company anywhere. It's entirely possible that the low-level employees were losers (in the Gervais principle sense) with no personal stake in the company other than to milk it for a paycheck. If that's the case then perhaps motivation by fear is a legit management strategy. In other words, even though it may be true that brilliant hackers would never put up with a managerial environment like that, maybe they never would have worked there anyway.
Instead we have to hire people that are internally motivated by passion for what they do, and a desire for greatness.
I think you're missing an important part of the picture: Startup employees generally want to get rich too. If the startup they work for does phenomenally well, that should happen.
In the corporate world, not only does an individual have less opportunity to make a difference, they usually get pretty much no payout even if they do something really outstanding.
In the startup world we know that the strongest motivation is internal, and that despite the cultural expectation of long hours, we can't really force the issue. Instead we have to hire people that are internally motivated by passion for what they do, and a desire for greatness. If, in a startup, you have to crack the whip you've probably already failed.
In the corporate world you don't have the luxury of hiring only the best and brightest most internally motivated people. There's the law of averages for one thing, but also there tends to be a lot more grunt work, bureaucratic overhead, and the individual has much less opportunity to make a difference anyway. There are good reasons for these things; once you have a profitable, repeatable business, bureaucracy and processes ensure the money keeps coming in and mistakes are learned from on an institutional level, there is less incentive to innovate because the risk-reward structure is completely different.
Despite the fact that we know this is bad for morale, we don't know that morale and intrinsic motivation were getting this company anywhere. It's entirely possible that the low-level employees were losers (in the Gervais principle sense) with no personal stake in the company other than to milk it for a paycheck. If that's the case then perhaps motivation by fear is a legit management strategy. In other words, even though it may be true that brilliant hackers would never put up with a managerial environment like that, maybe they never would have worked there anyway.