There's no excuse for not giving people what they're owed -- never trust anyone that wants to exploit your skills. Whether its by "changing the world" in a startup or being patriotic for the government.
> The fact that some of the best and brightest in our industry have decided to do this work because it's important rather than because it's the most financially rewarding option is encouraging.
There's actually really simple reasoning behind this: the flip side to your statement is "the fact that the government isn't willing to pay for work that is important is discouraging".
You hear about the tremendous amounts of waste in government projects (everything from military contractors to the bay bridge that got built by a FOREIGN company, went over budget, and now may not even be safe). Clearly some projects are deemed "important enough" to be paid for. If your project doesn't command market rate, then either it isn't as important as they're trying to tell you it is (since they've clearly demonstrated a willingness to pay in other areas), or, perhaps worse, it is but they just don't care about it enough.
Its so strange that the patriotism line only applies individuals who can't negotiate for themselves. When it comes to huge corporations, these arguments never seem to come up.
> The fact that some of the best and brightest in our industry have decided to do this work because it's important rather than because it's the most financially rewarding option is encouraging.
There's actually really simple reasoning behind this: the flip side to your statement is "the fact that the government isn't willing to pay for work that is important is discouraging".
You hear about the tremendous amounts of waste in government projects (everything from military contractors to the bay bridge that got built by a FOREIGN company, went over budget, and now may not even be safe). Clearly some projects are deemed "important enough" to be paid for. If your project doesn't command market rate, then either it isn't as important as they're trying to tell you it is (since they've clearly demonstrated a willingness to pay in other areas), or, perhaps worse, it is but they just don't care about it enough.
Its so strange that the patriotism line only applies individuals who can't negotiate for themselves. When it comes to huge corporations, these arguments never seem to come up.