What motivates programmers?

Watch this amazing lecture. It's only 10 minutes, but if you don't have that much time, at least go to 5:40.

According to many experiments, for cognitive tasks, the main factors for better performance (and, incidentally, personal satisfaction) are:

• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose

It applies to everyone, but especially to programmers, since programming is a highly creative task.