The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists

It might be that three traits usually represent an arbitrary number of dimensions sufficiently well (factor analysis, PCA). Or that thinking about more than three gets very hard (number of distinct combinations), so we just resort to three. For that matter, two dimensions, or even just the poles of one, are enough for most people (2-party politics, a/theist, occidental/orient, etc.).

True, I really just meant "at R1 universities." Which isn't fair to all those other tenured professors at non-R1 universities (and I may possibly even be one, someday).

Of course, I have heard of R1 tenured professors who claim to spend 50% of their effort procuring funding (though I think 10% is a much more representative estimate).

In general, it breaks down into "less time discount," "more of what other people want," "more of what I want". That's a simplification, but broadly speaks to the tensions in the system. I used to like this system because it helped identify the tradeoffs, but what I found most surprising about it was how often it didn't apply at all, in business/products/jobs but what was most in egregious violation of the principle were people. Some people just don't have a lot of upside to knowing; other people walk around with some nominal flaws, but for the most part are inspiring.

The problem here is merely a misunderstanding of career statistics. The statistics for success in academia are thoroughly against any one Ph.D. The competition is too high, the rewards are too low, and the competitors are too desperate. This is not a place where you wish to compete - unless you have some kind of overwhelming advantage - aka really, really brilliant - you know who you are.

For everyone else - look straight at industry - where the competition is a hell of a lot lower, the salaries much higher, and the competition is really not that bright. If you are getting a Ph.D - and you know you're not a genius - be looking at getting a cushy engineering job at a large firm.

The benefits are great, the salaries are great, the job security is great and you can always jump back into academia. It's also the closest analogue to academia as you'll get, next to research labs.

Don't ever compete on the same terms as the people around you. Don't play a game where you will lose - a game where you are probably outclassed. Go look to where you can charge monopoly pricing and extract as much as you possibly can.

Competing for limited resources is a losers game - hell, competition SUCKS BALLS (just ask any Chinese manufacturers you know :) - monopoly is where it's at (just ask AAPL/GOOG/MSFT/TSLA).

Separately - people should go out and learn some basic statistics, microeconomics (macro is pretty fucking useless), game theory and psychology. These will help you to avoid getting stuck in what can appropriately be called real life versions of the "Hunger Games" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunger_Games).

Reminds me of Tony Hsieh talking about poker strategies, and the conclusion of the movie WarGames:

> Through reading poker books and practicing by playing, I spent a lot of time learning about the best strategy to play once I was actually sitting down at a table. My big "ah-ha!" moment came when I finally learned that the game started even before I sat down in a seat.

In a poker room at a casino, there are usually many different choices of tables. Each table has different stakes, different players, and different dynamics that change as the players come and go, and as players get excited, upset, or tired.

I learned that the most important decision I could make was which table to sit at. This included knowing when to change tables. I learned from a book that an experienced player can make ten times as much money sitting at a table with nine mediocre players who are tired and have a lot of chips compared with sitting at a table with nine really good players who are focused and don't have that many chips in front of them.

In business, one of the most important decisions for an entrepreneur or a CEO to make is what business to be in. It doesn't matter how flawlessly a business is executed if it's the wrong business or if it's in too small a market.

Imagine if you were the most efficient manufacturer of seven-fingered gloves. You offer the best selection, the best service, and the best prices for seven-fingered gloves--but if there isn't a big enough market for what you sell, you won't get very far.

Or, if you decide to start a business that competes directly against really experienced competitors such as Wal-Mart by playing the same game they play (for example, trying to sell the same goods at lower prices), then chances are that you will go out of business.

In a poker room, I could only choose which table I wanted to sit at. But in business, I realized that I didn't have to sit at an existing table. I could define my own, or make the one that I was already at even bigger. (Or, just like in a poker room, I could always choose to change tables.)

I realized that, whatever the vision was for any business, there was always a bigger vision that could make the table bigger.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-hsieh/tony-hsieh-zappos-c...

> Instead, Falken and David direct the computer to play tic-tac-toe against itself. This results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn the concept of futility. Joshua obtains the missile code but before launching, it cycles through all the nuclear war scenarios it has devised, finding they too all result in stalemates. The computer concludes that nuclear warfare is "a strange game"; having discovered the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction ("WINNER: NONE"), therefore "the only winning move is not to play."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

In summary:

Competition is M.A.D. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction), the only winning move is not to play!

And long live monopoly!

How many PhDs have $40,000 to their name, as opposed to $4.00?

How many MTV or NYC Google engineers have $400k to their name after 5 years, as opposed to $4,000 and a bunch of money torched on rent? Google pays well, but not as well as you seem to think.

I'd say that (2) wins, if only because someone who sticks with Google for 5 years is probably one who made Real Googler and now has a fair amount of freedom. Google is pretty nice once you're above the Real Googler Line.