Ever since I started working on my “own” topics at NBK Labs, this question never let me go: Do you engage in a topic? And if so, what’s your motivation?
I feel like as you start your working life, you always have so many trade-offs when you work:
- level of challenge (i.e. is this boring?)
- level of control (i.e. can I steer?)
- level of money (i.e. does this pay?)
Probably there’s more, and as I will maybe revisit this article later I might come up with more, but for now I have a simple conclusion: When I was younger, I had the feeling that I should chase the challenge so that I can learn, once I felt qualified I wanted to be in control, and then I felt entitled to money.
Nowadays it’s different - maybe because also I have put in the work to be good, to feel entitled, to feel I can pick between boring vs fancy, in control vs controlled, I don’t really care. I’m happy to do the boring, I’m happy to be controlled as long as it pays handsomely and there’s an upside (speak equity). I can perform best in “boring” situations where I’m just slightly out of comfort zone.
I just recently had again this encounter at a new venture I’m building: Motif. At motif, we’re building the first independent wealth advisor - agentic, working only for you. It’s a very exciting venture, but there are a number of technology challenges that are really difficult to overcome. You need super bright people to actually overcome them, they haven’t been properly solved or documented before, so it feels a lot like R&D. And once you actually solve the current problem, the dopamine hit, the happiness is very very shortlived and the next challenge is around the corner. On the flipside, I have a tech leadership mandate at a company called “MCO” (my compliance office). Even the name is the definition of boring. Everything about the company is boring - majority is white, male 50+ Irish man and Indian developers - by the playbook. And the company does great, I mean really great. There’s no questions that people are working and performing at this company because it’s boring, but it pays handsomely.
So after looking and both, I still don’t have a conclusion. Fancy is very exhausting, you often feel lost, alone and once you solved one big problem, the next one is around the corner. Even if the platform works great, you feel in the trenches like walking through mud, never in the flow. This is very exhausting. On the other hand, you just get bored out and it’s so easy to “slip” into the rythm, to not push, to not give extra energy, to push the pedal.
For now, the balance of both sides makes a lot of sense to me: If I have the energy to push the pedal, I work on venture. Once I feel exhausted and I just want to chill, I can still perform very well in a boring role.