Passion vs. Money

jonahrubin
Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:27:03 +0000

arplayer, I don’t think anybody should be making decisions to do anything based on the goal of being super-rich, especially since the dotcom boom is over. What we can do is make somewhat informed choices of how to start out a decent job, the one we prefer over other decent jobs based on our knowledge of ourselves, and maybe shoot for one of those 2-3% spots that go to the best. “Start a wildly fantastic company, have a great IPO, drive ferraris and bang models” is a lot harder to achieve than the following:

Go to a target school for the Big Four, get 3.5+, get hired, kiss ass for 15 years, -----> Partner, buy Ferrari

Go to Ivy League, get good grades in math, go to Wall Street, work 100 hours a week(maybe have to go get MBA after 3 years), buy Ferrari,

Go to a good school, go Pre-Med or major in biology, do well on MCAT and get into good medical school, do well as an resident and become a specialist in a field where you get paid a lot ----->buy ferrari, hope Obamacare gets canceled

Go anywhere, get a really high GPA, get a high LSAT, go to a top 14 school(higher is better), be in the top 25% and on Law Review, get BigLaw job, work 100 hours a week and kiss ass ----->Partner, buy ferrari

Go to a good engineering school, do well, get cool job, go get a top 7 MBA, be a management consultant, go to Wall Street, or go into industry related to your old job and try to be CEO someday -----> buy ferrari

It’s not rocket science and 98% of the people on these paths aren’t going to end up with the Ferrari, but they’ll probably end up in the middle class and happy enough. You can always start your own company after you’ve worked for the man for a few years.