dream work

I was thinking about a startup idea and as the dream castle kept taking a grander shape in my mind, I thought about how it will make money. But then I was thinking how should it really make money, for what purpose. It led to thinking about how would I like to work if I ran this company. Here goes some basic principles..

• Working on something that is of value to people – in areas like education, health – anything that gives satisfaction of having helped someone and making an iota of positive difference to someone else’s life
• Working on something that is challenging, where I am learning continuously
• Working with people I trust, respect and love – people with whom I can be open and honest, with whom I can have lot of genuine fun, who share common values, people with whom I don’t have to think twice about saying the right thing and watch my words to avoid hurting their ego, working with friends and peers, without need of any hierarchy and competition, without having to pretend being someone that I am not, without worrying about a manager-subordinate relationship that makes relationships formal.
• Making just enough money to live minimally and comfortably, not luxuriously. Not worrying about growth, doing more and more of what I don’t like to do to climb an artificial hierarchy, running the rat race my whole life.
• Working in non-profit mode – making profit is by charging for the value provided and managing costs to return a profit to the shareholder or investor, it eventually leads to regret in some form or other (overcharging a customer, underpaying employees, compromising on quality etc). Remove that chance of regret altogether.
• Working on things that are honest, ethical, moral and rational – not having to do any single thing for the sake of it or to work around a broken system or do anything that is make believe to convince someone who is irrational.  

It sounds like utopia and unfortunately such dream castles tumble down and crashes when I wake up to reality. But then what is the value of our precious life and limited time in this world if we are not working on something that is of value to others, that we love to do, with good people and having lot of fun in the process.