management. This doesn’t mean you can’t be successful in a cost
center, or that you have to make the thing the company sells. Look at
the resumes of the senior executives—if they mostly came from sales,
then the company values sales. If they are operational people, that’s
the heart of the firm, whatever it says in the ads.
Sexy Job vs. ROI
Sectors are asset classes—the cool ones are overinvested, driving down
returns on human capital (compensation for working there). If you
want to work for Vogue, produce films, or open a restaurant, you had
better get immense psychological reward from your gig, as the comp,
and returns on your efforts, will likely suck. Competition will be fierce,
and even if you manage to get in, you’ll be easily replaceable, as there
are always younger, hipper candidates nipping at your heels. Very few
high-school graduates dream of working for Exxon, but a big firm in a
large sector would give you a career trajectory with regular promotions
a sexy industry won’t. Job stability counts if you want to have kids.
You don’t want to be forty-five and worried about your prospects. Join
a band on weekends. Learn photography at night. Work on it a little at
a time, until you have a nest egg to unleash it fully. The sooner you
start earning good money, the less you’ll need to earn, thanks to
compound interest. In a sexy industry, rent due can drive you to
desperation, and you’ll have neither a career, a stable future, nor
recognized genius.
I don’t invest in smoothie bars, new fashion lines, or music labels.
My greatest success has been a research firm. When I have someone
smart in front of me excited about a SaaS platform that offers hospitals
a better scheduling solution (so boring I want to put a gun in my
mouth), I smell money.