The Trouble with Optionality

In a Harvard commencement speech called The Trouble with Optionality professor Mihir A. Desai defines optionality as “the state of enjoying possibilities without being on the hook to do anything.” With enough optionality, you can always change what you’re doing in order to pursue something better. Desai critiques students for seeing optionality as ... See more

Harvard professor Mihir Desai worries that the language of finance has polluted life. He condemns the modern, finance-fueled affair with optionality. Rather than taking risks or working on important projects, students acquire options.

Optionality is a means to an end, not the end itself. Our obsession with optionality can backfire.

The secret is that taking risks provides optionality as well, via learning and differentiation. If you go to an ivy league school or elite consulting firm, however, you're merely one of many. Even something as prestigious as a Harvard degree makes you only one of 315,000. If you start a company, you can truly become one of a kind—you'll be one of a... See more

The average ambitious person spends too much time accumulating optionality and too little time taking actual risks with high upside potential for themselves or the world.