Anthropic CEO reportedly worried new hires only care about money

ffrays about 3 hours ago 10 commentsRead Article on finance.yahoo.com

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Discussion (10 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

briga•about 2 hours ago

Here's an idea: instead of paying your employees $800k, how about you cut their pay to $80k. See how many of them are truly in it for the mission.

worldthruword•about 2 hours ago

"Ask not what your Company can do for you —ask what you can do for your Company". - Anthropic CEO.

keeda•about 1 hour ago

Maybe more like "Ask not what AGI can do for you -- ask what you can do for AGI." ;-)

hahahaa•42 minutes ago

The good ones go work for OpenAI. And they lose any chance in the race.

Maxion•about 2 hours ago

Nah just go a step further and offer dorm accomodation and some slop for food, and then let people volonteer.

Frenchgeek•about 2 hours ago

Let's start with the CEO's pay.

mirzap•about 2 hours ago

Anyone who thinks people work for anything other than money is delusional. Anyone who works for "the mission" is an idiot - no company or billionaire running a company cares about you. They will let you go in a heart beat.

matwood•about 2 hours ago

I agree with you mostly, and it’s important for everyone to understand. With that said, not everyone maximizes for only money.

mirzap•about 1 hour ago

Yup, I agree. I’m just clarifying what I meant by my original comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49206654

dijit•about 2 hours ago

I’m aware of this (consciously) but I would really do my job if it was unpaid, in fact: many do (and did) in the form of side projects and volunteering and FOSS.

I was always weirded out by the “only in IT for the money” crowd, which is a lot more than the people in it for passion these days it seems, and I might be an extreme case, but consider that while I run an IRC community- I do not write open source software.

janalsncm•about 1 hour ago

I do a ton of side projects that personally interest me. I’m mainlining hard technical problems with zero need for permissions or waiting on bureaucracy or jira tickets. If a decision needs to be made, I don’t have to wait until next week when all of the “stakeholders” are available to talk about it. I figure it out myself.

If my day job was a side project I wouldn’t work on it at all.

mrheosuper•about 2 hours ago

I disagree, while money is a really important factor, that's not the final. Personally, I've changed to lower paid job to work on something i am more interested in.

mirzap•about 1 hour ago

I agree. We all make these kinds of trade-offs sometimes. We trade some amount of money for peace of mind, more interesting work, better colleagues, a healthier environment, and so on.

But I never buy the "mission" story, or the "we’re a family" line. We’re not a family, and I’m not on a mission.

I’m fine with the word "vision." I’ll be part of your vision if I find it interesting or if I believe in it too. But I’m not on a mission to achieve it.

To me, "mission" implies sacrifice and renunciation - whether that means sacrificing your lifestyle, your time, or your family. I’m not doing that.

ruperthair•13 minutes ago

I agree with you, but I don't think the parent post was arguing for money being the only factor, just a big one.

Would I work 9-5 for no money: No! Would I move from a shitty 9-5 to a less shitty one while taking an affordable pay cut: Yes.

breppp•about 2 hours ago

He is right, when a startup becomes successful the hiring pool becomes different. For example, you won't see people who came for politics-sake before real money is on the table.

This can kill the culture and make the actual people that were shipping unhappy

win311fwg•about 2 hours ago

> Anyone who thinks people work for anything other than money is delusional.

I work so that I am given food, shelter, entertainment, etc. at some point in the future in exchange for what I have given. Money is just the IOU that records the promise that I will receive those things later. I'm sure there is someone out there who is driven by the desire to collect IOUs and nothing more, but everyone (else but me)?

imjonse•about 2 hours ago

If he were not such openly against open models and China, his potential hiring pool would include more idealistic people.

wewewedxfgdf•about 2 hours ago

Dario Amodei is the Woody Allen of the AI world always worried and neurotic about something.

pixelatedindex•about 2 hours ago

Aren't they (where they = tech CEOs, at least) all?

chris_wot•about 2 hours ago

Funny, new hires are similarly worried the Anthropic CEO only cares about money, so they have something in common!

az226•about 2 hours ago

I doubt this is true.

New hires earn a small fraction of what existing employees make.

adg001•about 2 hours ago

Who has recruited them?

mertbio•about 2 hours ago

Since when do people in Silicon Valley work for a mission?

linguae•about 1 hour ago

Maybe I’m looking through rose-colored glasses, but while people need money, there was a time where there was more idealism from the founders and the employees. Steve Jobs could’ve quit business in 1985 after his failed coup; he was rich enough to never have to work again. Yet he started NeXT, and he was able to get people to join his company.

I feel we’re in a timeline in Silicon Valley where there’s little idealism. Employees seek money, and who can blame them when a two-bedroom apartment can easily rent for $4000/mo or more, and when a house is easily $2 million? Leaders seek not only money, but power, and their desires for power have been more blatant in the past year.

Where are the Steve Wozniak and Gary Kildall figures of Silicon Valley these days?

Krutonium•about 2 hours ago

Right? People typically do work for money. That's capitalism.

If I could pay bills with happyness and contributions to society through working for a cause, I would, but that's not reality.

Also businesses seem to think we should be Undyingly Loyal to them without any reciprocity. It's wild.

watwut•about 2 hours ago

They work for the love of diarupting anf breaking things.

fuzzfactor•about 2 hours ago

It's always possible that the capitalists involved care so much more about money than anything else, especially people, that the acorn can not fall far from the tree.

They would know better than us.

Aren't new hires actually expected to need the money more than people who are already rich?

righthand•about 2 hours ago

Lol welcome to capitalism bro.

You dont get to kill off coding skills and expertise then expect people to give a f*** about some vision. The vision is that the people you’re hiring now wont have a job in the future. Wtf do you think people are going to do while the clock is ticking?

The paycheck is the thank you for working for your vision. That’s the end of the agreement for any good worker who understands capitalism.