The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it whenever money as an incentive comes up, as evidence that rewards can backfire for creative white-collar work.
What it is
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.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2010 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe · 2026-01 · on “Antirender: remove the glossy shine on architectural renderings”
> 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]
Recommends hoop · 2010-10 · on “Does business school teach people how to assert power before they're ready?”
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]
Recommends arkitaip · 2014-06 · on “Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less”
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]
Cites nreece · 2010-03 · on “Functional Fixedness - The Candle Problem”
The Candle Problem was used as an insightful example by Daniel Pink in his TED talk on the surprising science of motivation - [this video]
Cites DeepDuh · 2013-01 · on “Why did a Train Carrying Biofuel Cross the Border 24 Times and Never Unload?”
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.
Cites ChrisMarshallNY · 2021-11 · on “Ways to improve mental health for software developers”
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]
Cites gretch · 2023-07 · on “California needs real math education, not gimmicks”
This Ted talk (includes a lot of data) shows that motivation via money hurts creative problem solving. [this video]
Cites ismailmaj · 2026-02 · on “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (February 2026)”
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]