the the truth nobody wants to say out loud is that most people with authority didn’t earn it.

they inherited it.

they faked it.

they politicked their way into it.

they sat in meetings, approved other people’s work, & called it “leadership.”

they were great at navigating the game of perception.

they were terrible at building anything real.

and now the... See more

David Perell said “I think my Twitter account is worth more than my college degree,” and in many ways he's right. As more platforms emerge that enable you to “show your work” new credentials will emerge where skills are quantifiable (and, thus, easier to validate), in-demand, and ever-changing. Competency-evaluation could be the key to verticalized... See more

The most important shift may be that credentials matter less than they have, and proving that you can do the work matters more. Between YouTube, Udemy, Replit, Optilistic, and a wide range of online educational resources, anyone smart and motivated enough can learn practically anything they want.

As someone who invested so much time and money in big-ticket credentials, that’s painful to admit. But I’ve seen too much to ignore the facts. I now grasp that people who are genuine visionaries know at an early stage that they can teach themselves, think for themselves, and manage themselves. Those are more valuable skills than any degree.

1) A college degree is more about signaling your worth than about learning.

This is hardly a brilliant insight—many are now saying this. But when you’ve lived it yourself, it changes your perspective on everything.

People opened doors for me and gave me a chance on a few occasions because of my academic degrees. But what I did with those... See more