The Choice of Work
by Danielle Fong
During the back and forth of exchange with a technical recruiter, he finally asked me what I was looking for. And so the floodgates opened.
This may sound weird, but I pretty much choose employment based on the promise of quality work. Other factors fade into irrelevance.
When I say quality of work, I mean more than the work environment, more than the magnitude of technical challenges, and more than the IQ of those I’d be working with. I want the opportunity to walk paths with the greatest hope of leading to first-class work. Nobel-prize winning kind of work.1 This force guides me, and so inevitably I tend upstream of technological change. Money and prestige are mere proxies for what I really want: to develop and inspire fundamental changes in the way people live. That doesn’t mean I need tackle the greatest problems humanity now faces (yet). What matters is that I, personally, have a reasonable approach. So I must always remind myself to, as Richard Hamming says, ‘plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow’ — because small projects can, swiftly and strikingly, grow momentum and value.1
I find little value in submitting myself to some company culture. I instead mean to develop my professional values, ambitions, and goals: for example, I would like to develop new methods, make them available by open sourcing them and make them popular by evangelizing them. I’d love to be given the chance to teach what I’ve learned. Excellent people bring ideas and perspective to a communities of makers. Given time, I think this will evolve naturally into a company culture worth having.
Most big companies grow faster than they could build trust, to a size greater than strong values can be supported. Natural culture is the product of alignment of creative philosophies, and in BigCo, this is too often replaced with virtual company nationalism. Fascism even. I find this is more than distasteful. I haven’t really learned how to work within it at all. I could devote my efforts to such an organization only were there deeply meaningful work to be done. And why bother?
Angling to be upstream of technological change, I bait unusual questions and find surprising answers. Give me the choice between a VP position at a big five media company with oodles of benefits, and, say, work at an early netscape or google for a totally minimal salary, and I’ll choose the latter every time. I’m pulled towards organizations where I can learn about organizing, rather than learning about institutional tradition. It’s not important for me to learn about how to run a large organization: if ever I do, I won’t follow of the paths of current captains of industry. Instead, I intend to help grow large, leaderless, open organizations, and so I’d do almost anything for a chance to work with Caterina Fake, or Linus Torvalds.
I want to work on something I find deep personal meaning in. I strongly believe in supporting open culture. I don’t think I’d work for long in games or entertainment unless it could influence some social change. I worked at MochiMedia because it made possible an income stream for small independent developers where none existed before. This finally opened up professional game development from BigCos. Now, much innovation in gaming emerges from bedroom studios. Independent game developers can now commit to their art in a way they before could not.
Similarly, I’d work at YouTube rather than Hulu, even though one’s a startup and the other isn’t, because they’re more interested in involving everyone in the process. As Clay Shirky says, they’re interested in ‘finding the mouse’.
I want to work somewhere where I can truly make a difference. Why am I working in technology at all? Archimedes once said, ‘If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world.’ Technology is my lever. I need only find place to stand. This makes me wary of startups that try to do good, but aren’t particularly focused on doing it efficiently. I wouldn’t work for most charities. There’s too little pressure on them to focus — the tempering influence of market competition is replaced by government demands for ‘accountability’, which arn’t nearly so powerful.
There are numerous ‘ecogreen’ websites out there that try to promote simple, green ways of living. These may be virtuous, however, in terms of minimizing environmental impact I think they’re somewhat irrelevant.2 Saving plastic bags won’t lift a toe on our carbon footprint unless we find ways to either cut down on air and automobile travel, or do it more efficiently. And on carbon footprints — global warming is, I think, a red herring — there are thousands of nasty effects of pollution from, say, coal-fired power plants that will hit even if global warming doesn’t occur (though I think, probably, it will). Too much of China now wears breathing masks.3
I can see myself dedicating myself to the right company, so long as our goal, philosophies, and ambitions align. Yet these are stringent requirements. So far, then, I’ve found it necessary to reserve some energy and time for my own projects. So I must be open with companies: with most, I want only consulting work, to help them with some particular project, idea or problem. And I want to be completely, totally honest with everyone about it, because so far, the high road has never let me down.
Sincerely,
Danielle
———
Notes:
[1] – From the classic talk by Richard Hamming, You and Your Research. I don’t, particularly, apologize for my ambition here. Why shouldn’t I try to do first class work? The Nobel prize winning part is purely incidental. But this is the kind of work I mean — a significant contribution, one that people can build upon.
[2] – The free, online book Sustainability – Without the Hot Air is an excellent read. It is the first thing I’d suggest to someone interested in seriously starting into environmental matters. I shouldn’t claim that small contributions to green living are completely irrelevant — each does have some small effect. Perhaps raising the issue of green living in our collective consciousness will have an effect greater at second order than I imagined. But so many of our behaviors are misplaced. Many people, for example, go out of their way to buy ‘sustainable’ products at Whole Foods, say, when in reality, longer vehicle trips do more damage than almost anything you could buy. Many things are sold in a way to make you feel good about buying them. They don’t have any real effect!
[3] – This is worded provocatively, but pollution in China is a growing catastrophe. See ‘As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes’ and ‘Where Breathing is Deadly’.
———
Thanks to Alex Lang, Ma’ayan Bresler, Nick Pilon, Colin Percival, Michael Nielsen, and Joel Muzzerall for reading drafts of this, and Charles Beatty, for sparking it.
PS: Certain misconceptions have been raised. Some feel that this is one demand of an over privileged generation. I reply to this here. Additionally, I am not, in fact, abandoning my startup. But I do need money, and a visa, so I am looking into either employment or seed funding.
Wow. Any company would be idiotic not to hire you. I am a single mom and next to my son, my work comes first. I am so passionate about what I do that it often rubs people the wrong way. Frustrating, yes. But I can’t waste my time thinking about it – I’m too busy working my ass off. Now, to find a company where I can actually make a difference…and support my son – that would be phenomenal.
Good luck! And please use your amazing brain to save us from ourselves.
Couldn’t tell from your essay or not, but Paul actually did get paid — it was just a funny accounting error.
[…] This article about the motivations of doing what one is doing provides really good insights and is well worth a read. […]
Hello there,
It is likely that excellent people are attracted by excellent people. That’s what Xerox PARC was in the 1970ies and Netscape in the 1990ies. Though, I believe that a badly motivated expert still performs better than an unexperienced greenhorn. At least at the beginning.
There’s a nice essay by Paul Graham titled “Cities and Ambition”. Paul looks at places that attracted painters and how excellent people motivated other excellent people. You can find the article here:
http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
Cheers
Hi mssinglemama,
Thank you for the kind words. It’s wonderful to hear that you’re pulling through. My mother is a passionate journalist, who also raised three little rascals. We gave her hell — so it’s doubly impressive that you’re doing it alone.
What kind of work would you like to do?
Hi James,
Thanks. I didn’t actually know about that, though I suspected it was something like it, or that maybe Google really didn’t have much money back then. Heh.
Zero-dollar checks amuse me. I used to find them in my mailbox every month at Princeton, since my fellowship had supplanted ordinary pay. I wanted to frame them, but they’ve lost themselves on me.
Hi Benjamin,
That’s a very good point. I’d also add that I actually linked to PG’s ‘cities’ essay, though as an example of the shift of wealth upstream, rather than an example of the power of ambitious communities.
On experts and greenhorns, I’d ask, ‘expert’ in what? Surely we know people who are ‘nothing if not eager’, but that attitude won’t sustain itself for long without building some skill.
In addition to an interesting essay, thank you for some really interesting and eye-openning links (on “professionalism”, on the free-time surplus, etc) !
“Too much of China now wears breathing masks.”
I click on the associated photo and read at the end:
“..we don’t really wear masks in eastern China or China in general.”
Nice sentiment and nice photo though.
Find your niche before you have kids. Then make a better world for them.
I enjoyed this!
The idea of getting upstream was great.
Last week I blogged on ‘What will be the next BIG challenge for technology?’ I wonder what YOU think?
Url: http://catchthevision.wordpress.com
Putting down a comment just so I don’t lose you before having time to think about it.
I actually love my job … it’s just not philanthropic. Well, we do have plenty of pro bono charity clients, so that’s nice. I’m in the marketing/advertising and interactive field.
Tks for your nice words about your mom!
I loved this and have experienced much of the same emotions myself. For me though, it goes one step further…I’m not longer just interested in “where can I find quality work where I can contribute and be happy” but “how can I or the company I’m working for better partner for the greater good?”
I went to a Peter Senge lecture a while back where the following quote opened the discussion:
If I reflect on what many organizations have been going through, the whole awareness of sustainability is growing because systems thinking in different forms is enabling us to see interdependencies that we have not seen in the past.
It is those interdependencies which make you conclude that it is more than stupid, it is reckless to think of commercial sustainability in isolation of either social or environmental sustainability.
–Andre van Heemstra, Unilever Management Board
More info on the talk here: http://socialventurelabs.wordpress.com/2008/06/19/no-fish-no-fishsticks/
Hi keshet,
Good point. I made that link as a form of attribution. I’m genuinely not sure what the status on air quality in China is — I have seen, on numerous occasions, videos of people walking around with breathing masks, but maybe these just get filmed more often because they’re so jarring.
Danielle,
I enjoy motivated people and I know it is motivation (and ability) that makes you an expert on the long turn. However, if you are a beginner, what else can you offer than motivation?
With ‘expert’ I want to describe someone who has all the skills or abilities to do a particular job. When I wrote this, I had high profile jobs in mind. But I think the statement that /a badly motivated expert^wprofessional performs better than a motivated beginner/ is also right for simple jobs.
Of course, you are right that you need motivation on the long run. And I believe that most experts are motivated. And, from a management perspective, it is not wise to assign all tasks to the experts. This would avoid the emergence of new experts and prevent growth. But, this is another story…
This essay appears to have raised some misconceptions, which I would like to address.
Issac Garcia Writes:
Doug Mitchell adds,
To which I reply:
That’s strange, Doug. I meant the exact opposite. I don’t care about lattes, or personal wealth, and I’m willing, and do, bear all the risk and make large sacrifices in comfort, energy, prestige, and stability, for the sake of trying to do something that I think matters.
This might surprise you, but I have, for example, lived on the street, dug ditches, moved across the country with almost no money, no credit, no family safety net, no insurance, and lived on a floor in a flea infested slum, while paying for other, like minded, idealistic people to live. It’s not like I’ve been living on handouts. I’ve been totally scraping by, and still am.
It’s not an attitude I’ve come to because I haven’t had to work for a living. It’s an attitude I’ve come to because I’ve been in the depths of poverty before, with no certainty of food on next week’s table (and, in fact, no table). And I saw how joyful I could be regardless. All I needed was to be able to make a difference in something I cared about.
That’s given me the power to ignore wealth, and ignore fake ‘responsibility’, in search of something I care about. Most work is pointless these days. I want to do something that isn’t.
Strikingly, this mindset seemed to be much more prevalent in the depression than it is even now. People had to care about something other than wealth. There was poverty all around them, but humanity, in every direction.
I respect and admire your experience and dedication to doing work that’s meaningful and work with a point. I think in generalizing about generational characteristics, cases like yours are obviously lost in the curve. You may have the credentials/dedication/intellect to pull off your dreams of life/career design…but I hear less elegant manifestos from the generation frequently and they’re shallow and adhere closely I feel to my previous comment.
Ideally now, I should go out and attempt to hire as many millennials as possible so I can adapt and learn what it’s going to take to see us all succeed since…with certainty…they’ll be leading the way in organizations within a few short years.
Please keep the dialogue going and I will subscribe to your blog. Kindest Regards,
Doug.
One problem I’ve always had with creating a corporate culture is that measuring its quality is so elusive. As a result, most execs focus on more quantifiable metrics, like revenue growth or profitability. My sense — and I think most of us would agree — is that there’s a strong correlation between a healthy corporate culture and financial success. Note that I don’t specify cause and effect here. It’s hard (not impossible, but hard) to maintain good morale at a company that’s failing financially. And I have seen companies with loathsome cultures (e.g. Electronic Arts) consistently pull in big profits. But, in my next start-up, I’m planning to focus on making the culture a success, with the faith and confidence that this will more likely result in profitability than any other single priority.
So what creates a healthy culture? It starts with work that feels important to the people who are doing it. The other essential ingredient is a group of people who enjoy working together, who trust each other, and who are rooting for each other. A shared goal is implicit here … but it’s worth mentioning. I think that’s about it. Well, maybe a ping-pong table.
I’m most curious what you do next. Meaningful livelyhood is quite hard to find.
FWIW, when I lived in Beijing most Chinese wore masks against the dust blown in from the nearby desert, although the polution was also pretty bad in winter (people used to heat their houses with coal).
[…] Fong from one of my recruiters, Tal Almany. He may have very well been the inspiration for this article being written (Danielle please confirm if you’re reading this). He does identify himself as a technical […]
[editors note: this comment was mildly edited for spelling, grammar and punctuation]
“… there’s a strong correlation between a healthy corporate culture and financial success.”
I have to word it strongly, so my feelings come out clearly enough: BS!
I currently work on a project for a financially highly successful insurance company, of which the corporate culture I can characterize any way but healthy. As a project manager, I managed many projects for many companies, and this company qualifies as one of the top three companies managing projects badly. There’s no process in place to catch this problem, neither does anybody speak up, not even when it’s obvious. I’d say this is a sick corporate culture, in no way a healthy one. Still, simply due to scale factors, they do extremely well financially.
In fact, I have met very few companies of which I would say they have a healthy corporate culture. There are few companies rotten to the bone which can show some financial success, but there are many (I’d say the majority) companies which have a stinking corporate culture (like “keep your head down and do what you’re told”), which does not stimulate continual improvement of processes and product quality in any way, but which are still doing very well financially.
I think the problem is that management makes the corporate culture and people make a company’s success, often in spite of the company culture.
If I get it right, the article’s author just says that she’d rather spend her time on doing useful and meaningful work (of course, useful and meaningful by her definition), rather than spending a significant amount of effort battling the corporate culture. Sounds reasonable to me. Only, given the job market, I think she’ll have a hard time finding that meaningful job she’s looking for.
Besides, she can be happy not to have responsibilities, such as children, old and helpless parents, an autistic sibling or the like to take care of. This is actually the safety net someone was talking about, not the “be a student for ever” stuff. It’s easy to take risks as long as you take them only in your behalf. It’s a lot harder to do so when you’re not responsible just for yourself anymore. Unfortunately, this is the situation of most of us.
There’s a difference between a correlation and a rule. Maybe some companies at the top now have evil intentions. Perhaps some even made it to the top because of them.
But I think it’s pretty hard to make that case that malevolence will help you. The fastest growing companies tend to make things possible for people that they could never have before. This tends, often, to be obscured by politics. Yet, on the balance, our world benefits as companies do. Or at least, more often than not, which is my point.
And while it was a struggle to find a meaningful project and the ability to focus on it, I was able to. I may have fewer responsibilities and things weighing me down, but that’s because I made thousands of small and many big, hard decisions, to make it this way, to free me for the best work I can do. And while I may not have as many personal responsibilities as many others, I do share, recognize, and rise to the greatest responsibilities I know of: to oneself, to live honestly, and to the world, to do one’s best.
Danielle, I just discovered your blog. Great stuff!
Let me suggest that there is still a trade-off in your value system: the risk-adjusted value of the work you contribute personally vs. the risk-adjusted value that you contribute to a collective effort.
To take an extreme if oversimplified case, imagine that there are a hundred equally plausible ways to solve a first-class problem. In this idealized example, let’s assume that the optimal collective strategy is to have a hundred teams pursue the problem using independently selected approaches and use the best solution. Implicit in this assumption is that the value of the solution is well worth the investment of the hundred teams, and that we have no basis for more efficiently targeting the efforts. So the strategy is collectively optimal, and you personally can support this collectively optimal strategy by joining one of the teams.
But joining one of those teams means you’re facing a 99% chance that your personal contribution is nothing more than helping eliminate a dead end. And there may be other projects where you are more likely to personally create something valuable. Perhaps not as high an expected contribution, but with much lower variance (e.g., a problem like the above, but where the optimal strategy involves only a handful of independent teams).
While this discussion is abstract, I don’t think it’s that far off the mark. Individual risk/reward is different than collective risk/reward, since individuals don’t get to benefit from the central limit theorem (and yes, again oversimplifying–I agree with your earlier post that the preconditions for the CLT are rarely met).
Also, note that I’m not talking about money or prestige. You can pick any definition of value, and personally I happen to like yours. The question is whether you can take satisfaction in knowing that your contribution is as a cog in a collective effort that may even throw away your personal contribution as a negative result. I’ll confess that I cannot.
Daniel,
That’s a very good point. Most people would likely choose a small project, to avoid the risk of no personal contribution.
I’m a little different though. In these decisions, I try to be as strict a utilitarian as I can be. I’ll maximize expected value for the world — not just for me.
Thanks for reminding us as you were reminding ourselves: stick to your guns. There’s a difference between misplaced pride and showing integrity.
Thanks also for reminding us that pollution, even in China, is worth being concerned about.