For Love or Money

We are led to believe that commercial success doesn’t come to the best artists, that the best art is done for the “love of art”, not to cater to what others want. Seth Godin certainly agrees with that view:

“You have to give the client work that you want your name on… Work that reflects your vision, your contribution and your hand. That makes it really difficult at first. Almost impossible. But if you ignore this rule because the pressure is on, it will never get easier.”

Pablo Picasso disagrees with that view. Vehemently. As he once said:

“Few people understand anything about art, and not everyone is sensitive to painting. Most judge the world of art by success. Why, then, leave success to "best-selling painters"?”

He goes on to add:

“An artist needs success. And not only to live off it, but especially to produce his body of work… For myself, I wanted to prove that you can have success in spite of everyone, without compromise.”

Nassim Nicolas Taleb uses the term “f*** you money” in The Black Swan:

“It is a psychological buffer: the capital is not so large as to make you spoiled-rich, but large enough to give you the freedom to choose a new occupation without excessive consideration of the financial rewards. It shields you from prostituting your mind and frees you from outside authority—any outside authority… Note that the designation “f*** you” corresponds to the exhilarating ability to pronounce that compact phrase before hanging up the phone.”

Even Google, a company that we think enables its employees to work on the coolest things, can be used as a platform to acquire “f*** you money” as Alistair Barr and Mark Bergen point out:

“For the past year, Google’s car project has been a talent sieve, thanks to leadership changes, strategy doubts, new startup dreams and rivals luring self-driving technology experts. Another force pushing people out? Money. A lot of it.

Early staffers had an unusual compensation system that awarded supersized payouts based on the project’s value. By late 2015, the numbers were so big that several veteran members didn’t need the job security anymore, making them more open to other opportunities, according to people familiar with the situation. Two people called it “F-you money.”

It's all very well to talk that artists should create what they want to. But someone’s got to pay the bills. Getting the “f*** you money” first seems like a more practical option to most.