“When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.” – Oscar Wilde

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful — that’s what matters to me.” – Steve Jobs

One of the interesting things about money is that its value is determined by how many other people in our society consider it to be valuable. At the end of the day, if no one considers money to be valuable (that it can be exchanged for goods or services), then it has no value.

I’ve learned from working to build my own startups that if you’re striving to become a businessman, gain influence, or change the world, it’s crucial that you fundamentally don’t care about money.

The reason is that the more you care about money, the more people with money can manipulate you or control you for their own interests. In addition, if you care too much about money, you are more likely to make wrong choices that may benefit you in the short-term, but harm your customers or users in the long-term.

Money is a tool for one individual to get what they want from another individual, whether it be for that person to perform an activity or behave in a certain manner.

Since the larger societal population cares about money, this is a great way to control not just one individual, but the way many individuals spend their time every day. Yes, I’m talking about employees at large.

However, money has it’s limitations as a tool of influence. The more money you have or the less you care about it, the harder it is for other people to persuade you to act or think a certain way with money.

Money is only one tool that helps with persuasion or behavior control. Thankfully, there are many others.

Consider this example: Let’s say I’m trying to convince a great engineer to work at a social networking company, I’d take a trial and error approach to figure out what they really care about.

Trial 1: Offer them a lot of money.

Result: They don’t care about making a lot of money since they already have an in-demand skill-set and an extra few thousand dollars isn’t going to significantly change their standard of living

Trial 2: Offer them influence.

They can head up a project and be responsible for a large number of users. They can create and test out new products with those users.

Result: They are more interested, but since they are a good engineer, can probably get the same kind of position in other companies.

Trial 3: Get to know them better.

How do they want to see the world changed? What are they passionate about? What legacy do they want to leave behind?

From that information, frame the job and highlight the functions or roles that will satisfy those dreams over time. Emphasize that they are part of a larger movement at this company, which is changing the course of human history for the better. The company is filled with people that are just as passionate as they are about these causes.

Wrap up the pitch by positioning the job as an opportunity to make a difference, not only by heading up a new project that aligns with their passions, but also by being able to make choices with little to no bureaucracy, while working with some awesome people in a great office environment.

They will be doing something that will make a name for themselves in the community AND they’ll be eager to come to the office each day. Why? Because they’ll working on something that they are passionate about.

Oh yea, and then there are the perks like working from home, free food, and tickets to speaking events that feature awesome entrepreneurs and programmers. Did I mention the six-figure plus salary?

Result: They are wooed (for the sake of this scenario)

In this example, money does not have as much influence as other assets like work environment, impact, and the company’s mission/values. Money is simply a tool to control behavior and get people to do what you want them to. It’s by no means the only tool.

The Takeaway

Don’t seek to earn money for money’s sake. Earn a lot of money so that you can exert control on other human beings. This does not imply that you should control them maliciously. A better word would be “incentivizing” them.

With money, you can control the daily actions of 200 people and instruct them to help eradicate hunger in a particular city.

With money, you can make smart individuals work on the problems that YOU care about, like the way that Mark Zuckerberg is putting his engineers to work trying to connect the rest of the world’s population to the internet.

With money, you can create anything you want in the world by purchasing the time, skills, and effort of individuals to come together and build a skyscraper, the next generation automobile, or a piece of software.

You might think you are not involved in this process, but everyone uses money on a daily basis to control behavior. When you buy a hot dog or a piece of clothing, you are one of many whose payments direct the daily behavior of food makers and clothing manufacturers. They are “in business” because of you, which means your money has caused them to spend 9am – 5pm creating or selling the products and services that you consume. You are controlling their behavior in a small way.

What’s great is that you don’t need money to control or incentivize other people to behave or act in a certain way. As I illustrated in my example, you need to figure out what they care about, which isn’t always money. Jesus and Gandhi are great examples of changing behavior for the better without using money. Cult leaders like Jim Jones and Charles Manson were also able to change behavior without using money, but for a malicious intent.

So, don’t try to become rich for money for money’s sake. Pursue wealth so that you can control the behavior of others and make them work on the things you care about.

“We’ve got to put a lot of money into changing behavior.” – Bill Gates (regarding his work with vaccines)