It's practically a hacker axiom. Money matters, but changing the world is what really matters. Money is just a way to be able to work on changing the world without having to worry about keeping the rent paid.
Money and power are (in most cases) synonyms though.
Converting money into power isn't hard - if you had $100m you could direct a lot of people to your own ends. The fact that most people expend this power on making more money is a correlation not a cause.
Equally converting power into money is trivial, with just a few megawatts available and some crocodile clips you can get almost any banker to agree to hand over his cash ;)
More classical management classes (yes I took one, no I'm not a manager) tell you people are interested some set of Money, Power and Prestige.
1) Money. It lets you buy stuff. It may let you buy power and prestige, but this is a secondary thing. Money heavy jobs: Bankers, stock brokers, oil tycoons.
2) Power. Power is the ability to get other people to do what you want. Power heavy jobs: Managers, Heads of State, Mob bosses, evil villains.
3) Prestige. This is how much respect you have from others and the quality of your reputation. Prestige heavy jobs: Professors, lead scientists, philanthropists.
Nobody works for just one of those, and you can sacrifice one for the others. When you work in a company and reviews come around you're given; a raise that tickles your money itch, a promotion that tickles your power itch, and awards that tickle your prestige itch. Or at least that's the theory, and I tend to think it's a decent approximation.
I see power a bit differently. Power is one's ability to affect the world. "Getting other people to do what you want" doesn't really cut to the core of the matter.
Jobs and Wozniak, Gates, Torvalds, Brin and Page, these people are all quite well off financially (to say the least). But that's not what's impressive about them, at least, not to me. They've all had a huge effect on the way that our world runs.
Clearly, there is a link between money and power---money buys power, and power can be turned into money---but they're quite not the same thing. Money can only affect the world by getting people to do things in exchange for it. Someone who makes a billion dollars through wise investing is not the same kind of animal as someone who foresaw a major shift in society and had the moxy and brains to push it forward.
Also in this power list are people like Tim Berners-Lee, Djikstra, and Knuth. The kind of power that politicians have seems transient and shallow by comparison. In 10 years, George Bush will be just another ex president who threw his army around. TBL's place in history will be relevant in 1000 years.
In the context I was taught power had that very specific meaning. In this specific meaning money isn't power (though it can buy it), and money isn't prestige (though it can buy that too, see billg). In this definition, Bush has lots of power, and almost no prestige. Prestige on the order that Djikstra, Knuth, Turing, etc. have tends to last much longer than the people who earned it. Money and Power have almost no meaning beyond your lifetime.
If you follow the narrow definitions of the course, things tend to fall in place fairly cleanly.
One of the things that makes me wary of this model is that you can buy one for another. To be truly elemental of what people want you wouldn't be able to buy one for the other. You can't exchange lead for gold no matter how much lead you throw at the problem. This leads to confusion about what is what.
If you can buy power with money doesn't that make them interchangeable? Well yes, but that's not the point. Well what's the point? People tend to crave power money and prestige. But can't you buy power with money? ... And the cyclical argument continues :)
Well, that's just it. The kind of power that I think hackers crave is the kind that you can't buy with money.
Even if you had billions of dollars to throw at the problem, you could never be as relevant a figure in shaping the face of technology as Turing or von Neuman were. They created the ideas that are at the very core of so much that we do. You can't invent something again, and money isn't the tool you use to invent stuff :)
The shallow, transitory sort of power certainly can be bought. You can use money to make people do things. But you can't think with money, so it doesn't give you the power to have powerful thoughts, and THAT'S what changes the world.
That kind of power can obviously be turned into money, though.
I'm a bleeding-heart romantic. I used to be a workaholic - had an emotional relationship with work - now we're just good friends.
If work doesn't make you happy, it can give you the means - it can give you the financial support to do the things that make you and others happy.
I'm learning over and over (loop) that trying to look at things as black and white, good or bad can make you unhappy, which is why reading this essay gives me concern - I think Danielle is much like me - I want to change the world - but I'm starting to think my lever might not be technology - I don't know if I have the talent and commitment to get hired by a startup/start a startup. After doing code for my day job, coming home at night, I'd rather go out and dance Salsa so I become a better dancer (not just a guy who goes through patterns, but one who dances and has a connection with his partner). Though I do think I can make little cool web apps like twistori/twittervision and I will once I become more efficient (e.g. Ruby over Java)). I really think my lever might be connecting with people and telling stories.
Danielle - Thanks for the essay. You are eloquent and understated.
Connecting with people is an incredibly powerful thing. If you can inject meaning into the hearts of the able, you have the power to do good.
You may discover, however, after going out and dancing Salsa and enjoying life in that way, that you can come back to technology refreshed and renewed and ambitious. I've seen this time and time again.
You're right about technology being a lever and the importance of using it. Which is exactly the reason I believe we should try working on designing bigger better levers, and not just applying existing levers to existing problems.
Okay, so I spent a bunch of time revising the design based on previous complaints, tuning up the contrast, for example. I find white on black much easier to read myself.
But I guess it's time to read the tea leaves. Users hate white on black. Got it.
Piping up so those like myself might be heard.. I find white on black easier on the eyes. while admiring his dark desktop theme I agree with the enlarging the type comment, however.
As for your post, I will point out that there are save one or two brilliant individuals at the F500 companies here in my midsized city (comparable to the guys (and girls) that frequent here). I've been trying to bring my skillset up to a comfortable level to work with these guys (or someone else at their level) for a while now. It's been slow and steady, and sometimes, I even have my doubts if I can (the maths are not a strong suit of mine).
Anyways, I do think there are some great challenges at Fortune 500 companies having worked at a few myself. Do they carry monetary rewards at the level of work that these individuals work at? I don't think so but the rewards seem to come from hands on experience received in using high-end datacenter hardware and working on large scale projects.
You're right; I don't think I will ever like it. The only time I find it remotely palatable is when it's used for artistic effect, like a movie website.
If I could speak to my younger, enthusiastic self, I'd say: stay strong. There are hordes of unambitious, lackluster people who will be threatened by you and your passion and your talent, and who will try very hard to beat it out of you. Don't let them.
Einstein said: "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities."
More to the point, in my experience the kind of people who actually do great things are not the kind of people who spend their time thinking about how mediocre, unambitious and lackluster other people are.
It's not necessarily dismissing them. Face it, some people are mediocre and unambitious. It doesn't say anything about what kind of people they are, but it says something about how they are intellectually and how pleasant working with them will be.
More to the point, people who are unambitious are mostly harmless. It's their right to be unambitious. It's those who start trying to persuade ambitious people that their ambitions will fail that are annoying.
Ok, I dare you to go up to someone and say, "You're medicore and unambitious -- not that there's anything wrong with that! It just means you're not as intellectual as me and I probably wouldn't enjoy working with you."
You can judge by their reaction whether they think you're saying something about what kind of person they are.
I still maintain it says more about you than them, though.
Well said! Sadly, this is a fairly common situation for people trying to rise above what's typical and do something great. I now try to be very selective about who I share my intentions with, at least until I have something to show for it; to wit, when they try to persuade me "you can't do that" I can demonstrate that "I already did".
It's practically a hacker axiom. Money matters, but changing the world is what really matters. Money is just a way to be able to work on changing the world without having to worry about keeping the rent paid.
Thanks for sharing this.