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I personally believe that the ‘give us good salaries’ part has to do with what middle/lower class tech grads of this generation have seen while growing up. Their parents/uncles had ‘stable government jobs with good pension plans’, they saw their parents grow old and retire from a single post after 30 years, so many of them probably don’t think beyond that. They want their lives charted out in advance and are afraid someone will move their cheese.

I had to hire a couple of people last month for a client, and interviewed 10 people with 3ish years of experience.
When I mentioned that it’s a new venture with exciting growth prospects if (when) it goes live and does well, I did not see the excitement that I was expecting. On the other hand, almost all of them had questions about the company stability and job security (besides their salaries and increments).
Interestingly though, the guy we ended up hiring was technically the best among the group AND was more interested in the venture than the increments.
Perhaps the next generation will be more daring and passionate about it all than their fathers.

Basically, there is a “world is ending” fear which then drives a grabby sort of attitude. I’ve heard many folks talk about how the going is good now, but it will soon go to hell like it did post-millennium-bug and so you’ve got to get as much cold hard cash as possible.

The other thing I’ll point out is that giving shares to employees can be a management nightmare given corporate structures in Pk. It requires disclosures that not all startups can make or are comfortable making. It can trigger intervention and unwelcome involvement on the part of former employees – rather than being a vehicle to reward people, it can become a pain to deal with.

If someone coming from a middle-class background is getting an above-market rate salary with bi-annual increments, he/she would not want to finish a one-week task in 3 days. On the contrary, he would give a 2 week estimate for a one week project, thereby gaining some free time for himself.
We can not have a Silicon Valley culture in Lahore as our business models are entirely different.
Our tech workers are coding away to develop the IP for international businesses, without any kind of ownership, and hence, no vested interest in thinking beyond the next task at hand or taking their work home with them. Your employees will solve the problems assigned to them, but they will rarely put in much effort beyond that. They don’t need to.
Also, to develop ‘love’ for your product, first you need to have a product – I think that at least more than 50% tech firms in Pakistan are services based. You can’t develop love for serving a certain client.

I think you have answered your own question when you say:
“it’s just hard to see how you motivate a workforce that’s getting 30-50% year-over-year salary increases without having to demonstrate the emotional investment that builds great companies.”

From an average employee’s perspective, if they are getting the above, WHY would they want to demonstrate the emotional investment that builds great companies? They know its not going to be their company, so what’s in it for them?

Give them 1% of the company though, and they’ll know that a possible 1 billion dollar company evaluation in two years would mean 10 million dollars for them, allowing them to buy that 10 marla house and the car, with some spare cash to take a vacation, and I am confident that you’ll start seeing the emotional investment and all-nighters that are missing from our tech scene, even if the chances of success are 5%.
So, besides a couple of anomalies, how many firms in Lahore are ‘sharing their company’ with their employees? Free pizza doesn’t count.

VCs need two things a) good idea b) people insane enough make it happen.

The problem is that all of our talent is working for easy cash, not for love or passion. In our culture, developing love for your work is bad. Because then you will be exploited by your employer.

Great products are developed out of love, not in return of X k rupees. Workers do not attract VCs, insane passion to create something beautiful does.