Ultimately why someone chooses to work at OpenAI or Meta or elsewhere boils down to a few key reasons. The mission aligns with their values. The money matches their expectations. The team has a chance at success.
The orthogonality is irrelevant because nobody working for OpenAI or Meta is a missionary.
>...one hand The Mercenaries they have enormous Drive they're opportunistic like Andy Grove they believe only the paranoids survive they're really sprinting for the short run but that's quite different I suggest to you than the missionaries who have passion not paranoia who are strategic not opportunistic and they're focused on the big idea in partnerships. It's the difference between focusing on the the competition or the customer.
It's a difference between worshiping at the altar of Founders or having a meritocracy where you get all the ideas on the table and the best ones win it's a difference between being exclusively interested in the financial statements or also in the mission statements it's a difference between being a loner on your own or being part of a team having an attitude of entitlement versus contribution or uh as Randy puts it living a deferred Life Plan versus a whole life that at any given moment is trying to work difference between just making money anybody tells you they don't want to make money is lying or making money and making meaning Al also or my bottom line is it's the difference between success or success and significance.
But also I imagine that it helps when you wish to stay neutral if people are afraid of what you could do if you were directly involved in a conflict.
If missionaries could be mercenaries, they would.