In Praise of the Meandering Career

So I’m taking my belated gap year, I’m “dropping out” of the tech career ladder. At some point you run out of excuses (save more money, figure out immigration stuff, also these layoffs, also the uncertainty, and what if you just spiral, or what if you fail, blah blah blah). By the end it felt less like a decision and more like an inevitab

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A thought about careers: As I think about the careers of some close friends I admire as well as my own path: Some of the boldest and most rewarding career moves I’ve seen friends make were among the most misunderstood - true orthogonal head-scratchers. And yet, some of these folks built companies or took on leadership positions that ultimately chan... See more

Ogas uses the shorthand “standardization covenant” for the cultural notion that it is rational to trade a winding path of self-exploration for a rigid goal with a head start because it ensures stability. “The people we study who are fulfilled do pursue a long-term goal, but they only formulate it after a period of discovery,” he told me. “Obviously

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For me strategy was about insatiable curiosity, falling down rabbit holes, connecting seemingly disparate dots, being that annoying kid in the backseat of the car on a long road trip who keeps asking ‘but, why?’, diving deep on subjects I’d never explored before, becoming a master of pointless trivia and therefore excellent in a pub quiz scenario.

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