I disagree thoroughly with half the premise of this article. For me, greed doesn't even play into it, and never did. Fear? Oh yeah, you betcha! Always plenty of that to go around, and always new causes for it when we beat back the old ones, so if greed were my other primary motivator, then I'd have given it up as a bad job long ago. So what's the other motivator? The other (prime) motivator is to be of service to my fellow man, to be a useful part of society. I learned long ago that money doesn't bring happiness. The happiest times of my life were when I was doing something for someone that they couldn't do for themselves. That's why I'm a businessman. Hollywood (and indeed, most of the world) has it all wrong. The root of business isn't money, it's service. It's doing something useful enough for people that they will pay for it. Money is a result and side-effect. That relationship born of necessity is the root of a business, and without that relationship between business and customer, the business dies.
I disagree thoroughly with half the premise of this article. For me, greed doesn't even play into it, and never did. Fear? Oh yeah, you betcha! Always plenty of that to go around, and always new causes for it when we beat back the old ones, so if greed were my other primary motivator, then I'd have given it up as a bad job long ago. So what's the other motivator? The other (prime) motivator is to be of service to my fellow man, to be a useful part of society. I learned long ago that money doesn't bring happiness. The happiest times of my life were when I was doing something for someone that they couldn't do for themselves. That's why I'm a businessman. Hollywood (and indeed, most of the world) has it all wrong. The root of business isn't money, it's service. It's doing something useful enough for people that they will pay for it. Money is a result and side-effect. That relationship born of necessity is the root of a business, and without that relationship between business and customer, the business dies.