The problem with opportunity cost is that opportunity cost is divided among many, many things.

The real issue is, how much goodwill do you invest in the work? And goodwill is not something that we can buy with money. It's very hard to buy goodwill with money.

In total, by giving people $30 bonus, Intel lost almost 5 percent of productivity. That's a lot. Now, think about it. You give money because you think this would increase motivation. It actually decreases motivation.

Money is all about opportunity cost. Every time you spend on something, that's something you can't spend on something else.

People are willing to work free, and they are willing to work for a reasonable wage; but offer them just a small payment and they will walk away.

I think we could get people to both be more productive and happier. We're less productive as individuals. We're less productive as companies, and we're more miserable.

The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. Ignoring gets you a whole way out there. The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and saying "Uh huh," that seems to be quite sufficient to dramatically improve people's motivations.