The Prestige Trap: finance, big tech, and consulting

Post by ashtonkem » Tue, Nov 17, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

michaelbrave wrote: post #308

ashtonkem wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the key takeaways from the social sciences is that people are really bad at estimating what will make them happy. Even those who have a plan for what they want are often drastically wrong about how it'll make them feel in the long run.

I've often wondered if happiness is something akin to grasping sand, that the harder we pursue it the more elusive it becomes and that rather we happen upon it as we try for things that are meaningful or even just being content with what is already.

Post by kortilla » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

ffggvv wrote: post #287

kortilla wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in almost all examples i can think of, the top tier startup pays more. WeWork and Airbnb want a word.

airbnb pays a lot more than google lol. and they are actually doing great now despite layoffs at the realllt beginning of covid

Post by mav3rick » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 5:46 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #305

akhilcacharya wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole 20% comment makes me think you’re being a little disingenuous about the idea that we are not less talented.

I am not being at all disingenuous in any of the statements I'm making. The "20% comment" was the one above me, I was just responding to it. The average Amazon engineer is less talented than the average Google engineer. That is what I was saying. I wasn't making any claim about how talented you are or aren't!

Post by mav3rick » Sat, Nov 21, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

klmadfejno wrote: post #280

I work at McKinsey, straight out of a master program. I find this article obtuse. Does McKinsey feel prestigious to me? Sure. That has nothing to do with James McKinsey inventing managerial accounting (in fact, internally, James McKinsey is rarely mentioned in discussions of company history). It's because as a 20-something guy I can have discussions with fortune 100 CEOs about what I think they need to do. I think th…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Nov 24, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #201

Tinyyy wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From someone working at Jane Street, Apple definitely does not make 10x per employee what Jane Street does.

These numbers are easy to find, but sure, let's break out our calculators. By recent generic numbers, Jane street does $171MM revenues across 900 employees. Apple has $274B revenues across 137,000 heads. $190,000 vs. $2,000,000. Netflix is even higher: $2.4MM. What numbers do you have?