"You take the blue pill... the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill... you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
—Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)
If you’re a blue pill-er, looking to continue about your day in peace, I suggest you turn this episode off. Come back next week.
If you’re still here, I’ll assume you want to know the truth. A truth so uncomfortable that we don’t want to believe it’s true. This reality challenges the beliefs we’ve held so closely all our lives. It uproots the very fabric of lies that our society is built on.
Here are the hard, cold facts:
→ It’s no longer enough to get paid a nice salary for 40 years. The modern economy has made your work a modern commodity. If you’re not essential, you can, and will, be replaced.
→ You MUST work with a purpose and towards an end goal, or face getting left behind.
Most people haven’t woken up to why this is important. There are two reasons to avoid replaceable jobs at all costs: Globalization & AI.
Globalization
If there’s anything the pandemic proved, it’s that people don’t need to be in an office to work hard. In fact, not wasting so much time commuting proved that people will spend more time working. Here’s an astounding stat – Americans are saving 60 million hours that would have been spent commuting. I can almost taste the productivity.
If your company was smart, they likely downsized their office footprint, or got rid of it. This begs the question, “if I don’t need office space in Manhattan, why do my employees need to be in NY? Or in the US, for that matter?”
There are loads of talented engineers, designers, and consultants all over the world. And, adjusted for cost of living, many won’t ask for six-figure salaries to do the same jobs.
By 2030, a billion Indians will have access to the internet. This means that the majority of English speakers online will be from India (h/t Balaji). If you don't have a US HQ, why not hire your next engineering lead from India?
If you’re not highly skilled at something that is directly value-creating, you’re a commodity. And all commodity goods compete on price. Is that a position you want to be in?
Automation → Artificial Intelligence
I’m not talking about Artificial General Intelligence, like the robot that gave Will Smith a taste of his own medicine in iRobot. If that happens, we’re all screwed.
I’m referring to the menial, mundane tasks that will be automated very soon. Why pay an employee $70,000 per year to do mindless data entry work when a robot can do it for a fraction of the cost?
My favorite example of this comes from my last corporate job.
“Hey Arj, could you take a look at these 30 apartments and list out the physical specs of each?”
I thought, “oh, you want me to waste 5 hours manually writing specs down, when a script could do it in a fraction of the time?”
It was at this exact moment that I knew it was time to go.
Moore’s Law states that chip density doubles every two years. In non-Geek speak, this means that the pace of innovation speeds up every year.
Look around you. Automation is already here. We’re leaping towards exciting breakthroughs in AI. Have you seen this video of Dall•E?
Instead of trying to fight it, figure out how you can leverage the power of AI. Is there a creative passion of yours that you can amplify through the use of technology?
The problem with pencil-pushing jobs is that they will keep you busy. You will have enough work to feel tired at the end of your workweek. The guise of productivity.
But it’s a sham. Here’s my framework for identifying whether a job is worth pursuing:
Is it revenue producing?
Does it create value for the company?
Is it important for humankind?
Is it revenue producing?
In a big company, it’s not always easy to see the impact on your work. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “will doing this task generate money for the company?”
Are you cold-calling to find potential customers for a medical device startup? Are you analyzing properties for a real estate investment company to buy?
These types of jobs produce revenue for a company. Revenue producing → important job function → job security → happy you.
Does it create value for the company?
Now, not all valuable jobs must be revenue producing. Are you designing a new marketing campaign from scratch? This campaign won’t produce tangible dollars on day one, but over time, it may have an impact on the value of the company. It could turn into an intangible asset.
If you’re in a job search, try to put the positions you’re looking at through point number two of this framework. It’ll make you more skilled, it'll make sure you’re not wasting your precious time in a meaningless job.
To put it simply, if a job requires zero creativity, leave it.
Is it important for humankind?
The third part of the framework could be a separate episode; I’ll keep it short.
David Graeber illustrates this point beautifully in On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs:
“Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it’s obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic.
It’s not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.)”
I find it hard to disagree with Graeber’s point.
It’s obvious that schoolteachers have a profound impact on the future of our world. They spend 8 hours each day molding the minds of our future innovators.
Many find meaning in doing work that benefits society in some way. It’s far easier to care about your job when you’re teaching kids, saving lives, or fixing cars.
The paradigm has shifted dramatically, and it’s not in our favor. If you are going to work a corporate job (there are PLENTY of benefits to doing so), I want you to be strategic about it.
Too many of us get caught up in thinking: “this job pays $150,000. That’s awesome!” It’s no longer enough to stop your critical thinking there. Your skills should mean something in the open market.
Think, is my role mission-critical? If I disappeared tomorrow, would it have a meaningful impact on the company’s performance?
More importantly, would it have a meaningful impact on the world?
Don’t be a pencil-pusher.
Are you a pencil pusher?