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Three Ways to Get Paid (2018)

220 points by nate

by beej71

5 subcomments

When I was a dev working with my business-oriented business partner, I had to get used to sitting in meetings where we promised the client the world having no idea if I could accomplish it or not.
Made a lot more money than I could have on my own.
"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'YES'!!"

by WorkerBee28474

1 subcomments

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.
2 Timothy 4 (NLT), circa 65 Anno Domini

by kuanbutts

5 subcomments

There's got to be a variant that is a 2x2 matrix of this:
Lie to others, lie to yourself (spiral together; either fantastically poor or spectacularly rich)
Lie to others, tell yourself the truth (manipulation, morally broke, but materially rich)
Tell others the truth, tell yourself the truth (integrity, barely scrape by)
Tell others the truth, lie to yourself (be used by the system, usually end up poorly)

by Wowfunhappy

0 subcomment

These ways to get paid could be represented as a table:

                   They Want Lies   They Want Truth
                   +--------------+---------------+
     You Tell Lies | become rich  | ???           | 
                   +--------------+---------------+
    You Tell Truth | go broke     | make a living | 
                   +--------------+---------------+

Notice how the upper right quadrant is left out of TFA. If you end up there, I don't think things go well for you. By which I mean, like, you could end up in jail.

Maybe telling lies isn't such a great business idea after all?

by jaggederest

4 subcomments

There's also good money to be made telling people what they already know, usually in the form of a report and/or powerpoint deck

by allenu

0 subcomment

It sounds like another way to put it: tell people what they want to hear and you'll go far. Most people want their beliefs confirmed, whether what they believe is true or fiction. Unfortunately it can lead to an echo chamber-y world where people only associate themselves with others who have the same core beliefs, which is even easier when communities are online.

by tombert

6 subcomments

I've told this story before, but it's relevant.
When I worked at BigCo [1], we were interviewing a candidate for a position. He was pretty good, and we were in the process of making him an offer, but he was asking for more money and trying to negotiate his salary higher.
I don't have an issue with this, BigCo has plenty of money, but other people, including a manager, were complaining. They felt that this is a good job and he shouldn't be doing this for the money.
I, not realizing that this was controversial, said "yeah, but come on, we all do this for the money."
Some people got defensive, explaining that they love the job. I responded "sure, it's good to like your job and your coworkers, I'm not trying to discourage that, but if BigCo stopped paying you then you'd probably stop showing up for work. At least I would hope so."
They kind of begrudgingly agreed, and the day went on as normal. The next day, I have an impromptu meeting scheduled with my manager's manager, explaining that I have a "bad attitude" and he mentioned that specific comment as a reason that this meeting was being called.
Now, to be fair, at the time I did have a bad attitude (in no small part due to at-the-time-undiagnosed sleep apnea), but the fact that I got in trouble for mentioning something that is objectively true really confused me. We weren't working for a charity, we weren't trying to cure cancer, we were working for a for-profit corporation. Of course we were doing it for the money, just like the corporation hired us so that they could make more money.
But I guess people just like to believe a collective lie.
[1] I'm sure you might be able to go through history and find the specific BigCo, and that is fine, but I politely ask that you don't post it here in relation to this comment.

by mlhpdx

1 subcomments

The wisdom from my Mom was “it’s better to be paid for what you know than what you do”. I’ve found it’s a bit more subtle than that, and enjoyed and learned a lot from piece work labor. But the sweet spot seems to be getting paid for what you do that uses what you know.
AI notwithstanding, of course.

by js2

1 subcomments

Copy/pasta of the entire post:
My father, who died in 1981, was an inexhaustible font of wisdom and wit. I don’t know when he told me this particular three-part rule, but I’ve never forgotten it. I tweeted it three years ago, but people keep asking for it in one place, so here it is. There are three ways to make a living:
1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.
2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
The rest is commentary.
---
That last line is undoubtedly a reference to:
> When someone challenged Hillel the Elder (b. 110 BCE) to teach the entire Torah while his listener stood on one foot, he famously replied, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Now go and study.”
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/5410546/jewis...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder
Aside, I've always seen it spelled "fount of wisdom", but either spelling is acceptable and this seems to mostly be an American/British spelling difference:
https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/font-knowledge-fount-wis...

by calmbonsai

1 subcomments

Watching our (newly hired) CTO lie to the entire company regarding the capabilities of a new feature I was hired to build was a brutal education in money-politics.

by riazrizvi

0 subcomment

Thanks. I keep doing 3. I needed this.

by tchock23

0 subcomment

This hits home. I started my career in market research after someone told me that it was the only part of the business world where you’re paid to tell the unvarnished truth, which I thought was cool.
It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the clients actually wanted to be lied to, and that if you weren’t willing to do that you wouldn’t succeed.

by andai

2 subcomments

In this thread: dang, I wish I was evil too!

by vcarrico

0 subcomment

So there are two ways? xD

by whalesalad

1 subcomments

My first thought was "cash, grass, or ass" but this works as well.

by quotemstr

10 subcomments

Is it me, or have HN submissions gotten shorter and shorter recently? At this rate, top-scoring articles will consist of a single word in a few years.

by greenhearth

1 subcomments

I think they meant "fount" of wisdom

by Forgeties79

0 subcomment

There are very rich/powerful people that do #1 shocking well and I kind of wish I had figured it out sooner. Having a moral compass apparently set me back irreparably. I could've been somebody!

by ThrowawayTestr

3 subcomments

I wish I didn't have any scruples, I'd be so rich.

by nunez

0 subcomment

Sales in a nutshell. The world is a pyramid of lying and incentives.

by greenhearth

0 subcomment

What a bunch of complete sociopathic crap this is

by hootz

0 subcomment

Ooooooooh, so that's how sociopathic CEOs and directors of big companies get rich!

by neogodless

7 subcomments

The "read the rest" button seems broken in Firefox on Windows... so that makes for a very short post.

by ProjectVader

0 subcomment

[flagged]

0 subcomment

by waqarjaved

0 subcomment

[flagged]

by jubilanti

2 subcomments

Apparently if you're a YC alum you can get to the top of the front page of HN posting an advertisement to go read someone's paywalled Wall Street Journal op ed, with a broken link when you click "read the rest".

by tim-projects

3 subcomments

I can already think of 5 jobs this doesn't apply to in the slightest.