Totally agree. I'm surprised more people don't figure this out. Our assumption that work and fun are opposed seems like an atavism from millenia of scrounging and slavery. Admittedly, those millenia are still going on for countless people, but not for those of us blessed with the chance to do creative work. Creative work is fun, even when it's gruelling. This is so vital for software projects that I sometimes toy with the conclusion that it's the most important thing - not the most valuable thing (that's what you create) but the most important indicator about the project itself. It's the canary in the coal mine: if fun goes, everything goes. You can walk into a software team's space and tell within minutes how a project is going by attending to this. Yet billions of dollars get spent trying to answer the same question.

While I'm surprised that so few people figure this out, I'm also surprised to see it expressed so elegantly as "We optimize for joy." Yay Salvatore! More projects should have manifestos. I want to write one!