Bill Gates - Harvard Commencement
Bill Gates - Harvard Commencement Speech
This was a fascinating read and made me think more about my motivations and my career. I find that I have hardly any motivation at all to work on a project that is solely a money-making adventure. For me to be passionate about what I'm doing there MUST be significant meaning in the pursuit. Usually it's enough that I'm solving a significant pain-point for a large group of users, but there must be more to drive my passion to its highest level. What really drives me is delivering the equity in opportunity (in concrete and definable terms) to those who really need it. That doesn't mean necessarily that my project has to *directly* and *immediately* contribute to generating profound humanitarian blessings. If what I'm doing can create the wealth to ultimately deliver those blessings, that will also drive my passion on a project. So what might look like a purely money-making venture, really is a means to an end.
The main problem with this is that I must work in a level of abstraction. I must be working with the goal to create wealth that will later be used for a greater good. That middle step of wealth creation can be a distraction from the end goal. I don't care in the least for wealth or power just for its own sake. It must be connected to a higher cause in order for me to care. My most demotivating experiences ever have been when I was working for someone who only cared about the personal wealth and gains from the venture. Seriously, how boring is that? However, the times that I've worked on a team where we were passionately solving a problem and helping others in a defined measurable way were the most glorious and high-inducing times of my career.–
10 Jun 2007 Matt Jaynes 1 comment