The End of Jobs: Money, Meaning and Freedom Without the 9-to-5

The development of the frontal lobe in humans means that, unlike apes, humans are not driven wholly by instinct. We evolved the ability to process and make decisions. This is no trivial or marginal change. It’s that ability to make decisions that have led to our dominance on Earth. Unlike any other species, we must make choices.

While no individual opportunity is guaranteed to pan out, systematically pursuing opportunities with a positive expected value means you’re going to find success over time.

“I don’t think of work as work or play as play. It’s all just living.” Richard Branson

but the broadest segment of Western population is employed in the knowledge economy, and it’s that part of the economy that, over the past hundred years, has been responsible for creating most of the abundance and wealth now available.

Working in a factory or corporation in a major city was something many individuals aspired to during the early 20th century for the economic prosperity relative to a more tenuous farming life. Yet, as we’ve seen, the limit has shifted. Economic growth has stalled both for society and for us as individuals. Because of the qualitative and structural

Great work—the kind of work that will create wealth in our lives and the lives of others is not the product of obligation—is the product of freedom. Freedom gives us a longer lever, a better leverage point.

Credentialism emerged as the path to invest in knowledge over the course of the twentieth century. It was a social script, a clear path that many of us have followed: go to school, get good grades and extracurriculars, go to college, get a degree, apply for jobs.

The democratization of the tools of production means it’s easier to make something. The creation of new markets means there are more and more people to sell those things to, and the democratization of distribution means they are getting easier and easier to reach. Just as jobs are more competitive and threatened than ever, entrepreneurship has beco

It is in seeking a path with no risk, no mistakes, and no variation (stable income, clear promotion path) that Max has in fact exposed himself to a massive downside—getting fired at forty without a skillset for creating new systems or operating in complex environments, the metaphorical car falling on his head.