THE VIDEO SHELF · motivation and incentives
The puzzle of motivation | Dan Pink | TED
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.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN cites it whenever money as an incentive comes up, as evidence that rewards can backfire for creative white-collar work.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- TED
- Topic
- motivation and incentives
- Format
- talk
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 3
- HN mentions in dataset
- 8
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2010–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
> 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 …
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe on Hacker News · 2026-01
In Antirender: remove the glossy shine on architectural renderingsI'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 …
hoop on Hacker News · 2010-10
In Does business school teach people how to assert power before they're ready?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. [VIDEO]
arkitaip on Hacker News · 2014-06
In Employees That Stay In Companies Longer Get Paid Less
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.