3 HN users recommended this talk3 months2010–2026score 3.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN cites it whenever money as an incentive comes up, as evidence that rewards can backfire for creative white-collar work.
Dan Pink's TED talk argues that traditional carrot-and-stick rewards often fail for creative work, drawing on the candle problem and social science research. He points to autonomy, mastery and purpose as better motivators.
“I highly recommend taking a look at the work of Daniel Pink related to money as an incentive.” (HN, 2026)
> The idea that money is not an effective incentive to drive behavior is wishful thinking It is obviously an incentive. But I think it's not an effective one and has many morally bad side effects. I highly recommend taking a look at the work of Daniel Pink related to money as an incentive. See The Puzzle Of Motivation (~20min) [this video]
Argues money is an ineffective incentive for creative work
I'll read them all over the next couple of hours. (I am sick in bed anyhow :)) Readings that I recommend are "The Great Jackass Fallacy" (I got my copy <$10 on Amazon) and "Drive" by Daniel Pink. There's also a Youtube/TED video that sums up "Drive" very well. [this video]
Have you seen any of Daniel Pink's work on what motivates people in business? It might inspire you to focus on other incentives than just pay salary increases. [this video]
Traditional incentives are often not as effective as you think: [this video] The best way to have motivated employees for creative tasks is to give them a high base salary, good working conditions and hire suiting ones in the first place. For repetitive jobs the incentives might work, but these are also the jobs where you should think about automation.
Traditional incentives are less effective for creative work
I remember a TED talk that Dan Pink gave (I think this might be it[0]), in which he mentioned a company that did "20% time." Atlassian; not Google. [0] [this video]
How do you scale a more human management system when both the manager or the managee can be incompetent or malicious. I'm aware that incentives are often counterproductive or insulting for white collar workers where there are elements of creativity in the job, but I feel like to get it to work you need trust which IMO cannot be scaled to big companies like Google. FYI, I'm paraphrasing, perhaps badly "The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED". [this video]
Incentives backfire for creative white collar work
Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.
Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed
8 Hacker News comments
From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.
Citations, criticism and jokes