> I don’t believe anyone in the world is truly passionate about things like payroll software.

I actually think that’s probably not a good assumption. I know you’re being pejorative, but imagine a scenario where someone has been working for years as a payroll administrator or someone who’s been a consultant working on implementing payroll systems for decades. People learn the market and get sick of the status quo and have tons of new ideas. I could easily see someone get excited about a way to make their job easier, more fun, more efficient, etc. and go and launch a new payroll software startup that just improves everything.

My point is: good entrepreneurs are passionate about solving problems. Sometimes those problems might “seem” boring but don’t assume they are.

But this assumes that the payroll administrator became that and liked that job in the first place.. and probably the person graduating college did not say “I want to work on payroll”, they probably said “I need to find a way to pay off my student loans.”

I'm sorry but this is just not true. I understand this is your perspective but "these people hate their jobs and only do it for money" is impossibly wrong. Sure, some people hate their jobs, but they're probably not the ones who are thinking about ways to make their jobs more efficient and almost certainly aren't the ones who are going and launching new companies.

I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs start a lot of companies (and started several myself). Many of which you'd think were "boring" -- log aggregation, devops metrics, auto parts retailing, CRM.

I can assure you that in every single case, the founders were truly passionate about the problems they set out to solve.

Hi,

As someone who worked in this space for just shy of a decade, you're wrong. The problems often reduce down to challenges that are familiar to most people in large scale software (CRUD entry, redistribution of %s or #s, scaling and performance, testing, etc), and people who love their craft will enjoy solving those challenges. It's like saying no one could ever possibly enjoy math; just silly.

I think this is a theory of mind issue. People find motivation in various ways. I admit that payroll software sounds like one of the most boring things imaginable, but it's also one of the most useful and relevant things imaginable as well, since it has a direct impact on people and makes many things easier. I can definitely understand a specialized programmer taking pride in their craft. And why shouldn't they? They're solving real problems and not making superfluous flashy products or skinner boxes.

ONe project I was involved with (and still recall, 20+ years later) probably falls in the "as boring as it can be" bracket. We were working on a system that would transfer data between a bank and the tax office. This system would send files from the bank to the tax office, when someone paid "taxes due" and fetch files from the tax office to the bank when the tax office saw that taxes had been over-paid.

All it did was "shuffle files back and forth" (with some data conversion between different IBM formats thrown in, for good measure).

But, I still recall the project 20+ years later, with some amount of pride. Partially because it was delivered on-spec, on time (well, it was delivered on Dec 23th and the deadline was Dec 31st, but as there'd be no one at the customer between xmas and new year...) and just a fraction under budget, with an exceedingly happy customer...

I'd even say that payroll software could be a lot more interesting than many other fields. If done right, it shouldn't just be a boring tool that adds some numbers - it should educate its user about the current legislation (e.g. about employee status, tax optimisation), be useful for hiring and budgeting decisions, integrate with banking and accounting software,... I bet tax software isn't too bad, either.

And at the end of the day, the dev hasn't leeched time and money away from some kids, but helped to make a real problem easier instead.

Do you have a list of interests that a reasonable person likes?

Based on my experiences people love wildly different things. I've met plenty of people loving things that I would avoid at almost any cost.

I would guess that your view of a reasonable person is what you see in the mirror. It's not even clear to me why payroll software is so bad. It's not what I spend time on, but it seems like something plenty of engineers would like because the requirements are pretty clear and stable.

I think you're contradicting yourself. Creating new (payroll) software ticks all the boxes you mention, ie running a company (I can run a company that produces payroll s/w), engineering (writing s/w is engineering, no?), making money (selling payroll f/w is making money). So why do you say that this cannot be fun?

The problem domain is only a means to an end. It could be anything, but payroll in this case might be where somebody sees an opportunity to take advantage of just for access to what they really want. I don’t understand why people (and the original article) act like it’s wrong to not care about the problems being solved or to hate the process. It’s just a pet peeve of mine.

That’s an opinion that could make the bearer pretty miserable in life.

I am an entrepreneur, and I make software in fields that you’d find super niche and dull, yet I am pretty excited about making quality software, making clients happy, and building a team that I can rely on in delivering our services.

The most lucrative jobs I've held are always working on boring, boring, boring, boring shit. The most interesting work is rarely all that well compensated, because supply and demand, and stories about the exceptions reek of selection bias or selective framing. Nobody wants to actually talk about the boring stuff or the non-spectacular failures, because they don't make for interesting stories. So we forget that Notch basically just won the lottery, except that he bought his lottery tickets with time instead of money.

But it's still worth picking something you at least don't mind, because then, even if you don't get rich, at least you didn't also hate every second of not getting rich.

This is most obvious in the gaming industry. Compensation for developers seems to be lower and hours longer within the gaming industry due to more demand.

This is way, way, way less true than it used to be. There are pro and semi-pro leagues in lots and lots of games, YouTube and Twitch make getting paid for entertaining rather than competing possible. Patreon, Instagram and TikTok makes getting paid for your lifestyle far far easier and more lucrative. Getting paid as an independent developer on open source projects is possible these days, sadly there's precious little there still for free software.

None of it is easy, but nobody promised anyone an easy life.

Most people trying to do this will make little or no money, and the sheer amount of competition and effort required to be the maybe 10% of the top people who can make a living on it is too much for most. And there are less and less structures in place to protect or mitigate risk for them; all Youtube has to do is change an algorithm or demonetize/ban you to tank your streaming business.

And the base assumption now for creative works is "free" and hope people donate to you. A lot of people would make more just working part time at mcdonalds.

This has always been true. It's just less true now.

I'm guessing it's a blip in history, not a trend.

What we're seeing is a first cohort of people who get in and build their careers while the niche is still young, and before everyone knows about it. Then there's a much larger cohort of second movers who see the work as aspirational and want to get into it. They have a much more difficult path to success. They have to compete with each other, and with the established players, for a piece of a pie that is no longer growing. Very few end up succeeding.

Jobs where I've previously seen this happen include lawyer, craft brewer, restaurantier, data scientist, academic, airline pilot, and games developer. I'm not sure I see any particular reason to think that it will be different for professional gaming.

I find this a little sad.

When I was at university I would find all sorts of crazy passions/hobbies/interests - building a projection TV from parts, improving my mobile phone signal/look/battery life, figuring out how to get logos and ringtones into my phone for free. The first two turned into hobby businesses that made me drinking money for years and even rent some months, the logos/ringtines got me my first web job.

Years later I was determined to do something interesting with video, and ended up starting an interactive video company with a friend, that to a degree still runs today.

I turned my passion back to mobile phones (as I loved playing with them figuring out what made them fun, and how sites could b great or terrible on mobile) and got a great PO gig as a mobile PO before showing how what we built could run the whole desktop site far better faster and cheaper, and becoming CPO of the company.

Maybe I've been stupidly lucky (I can believe it) but I've always had an interest in the paying work that I do, and usually am able to link it to a passion of mine - either because that is what I set out to do, or because I am well able to find that in the role and the people I work with.

I'm really sorry if you don't have that passion, and/or have only worked with people who are the same. Try doing what you love or at least enjoy - you might like it!

--

Edit - and on the payroll comment, I connected with the owner of SimpleTax years ago, and he totally had that passion. As a small business owner he was sick of doing his taxes and set out to make it easy for himself, the tool he made worked well so he dogfooded a basic site in Portugal, and then brought it to the UK where the tax system was similar and the market was bigger. When we met he was so passionate about what he was doing, why he was doing it and what it gave to his customers.

I like to code. It hasn't made me rich but I've made a good living. If I had my choice I wouldn't be coding to the whims of the publishing industry, but I still enjoy it. Much more than I would, say, the construction work that my father pointed me at. So the "genuine interest" advice has been good for me.

I think a lot of people are quite successful in the middle somewhere - doing something they like (or at least don't hate) - for someone else.

It helps to learn what you like and don't like early, say while your parents are paying the bills.

You still need to seek your passion. Only then can one form an opinion lime yours. It’s possible !

I read it as "you are unlikely to make money, so you might as well enjoy the process." The article is not about employment. It's about side projects, which are infamously hard to monetize.

fair point when it comes to employment...i think the point in the article is that when it comes to books/courses/etc they probably aren't going to be much good if you don't have much genuine interest in the subject/etc

I know, but it’s still useless advice. It reminds me of people who do competitive programming as a hobby then act smug when anyone complains about technical interviews.

This such a sad and American viewpoint.