A musing from the "grass is greener" file
Finance is a super competitive "blood from a stone" business. It has a lot of optimization to squeeze perma-threatened margins.
It's draining in that zero-sum way and because it's a scale business the rewards return to scale (& owners)
Finance is a super competitive "blood from a stone" business. It has a lot of optimization to squeeze perma-threatened margins.
It's draining in that zero-sum way and because it's a scale business the rewards return to scale (& owners)
As the last year showed, optimizations often revolve around liquifying excess capacity, redundancy.
It's short vol in that sense since options are sold. Time decay on slack, will cost you customers in short term.
It's short vol in that sense since options are sold. Time decay on slack, will cost you customers in short term.
As @moreproteinbars mentioned on Corey's pod the fear in commodities is to the upside because shortages are what destabilize markets
(Oil call skew is anti-correlated to excess days-to-cover)
Anyway...
(Oil call skew is anti-correlated to excess days-to-cover)
Anyway...
Almost a decade ago I was hanging out with a former banking guy who moved over to semi-mature tech company.
I say sem-mature because they were past hyper-growth and now started valuing optimization. He was able to be major value-add because he was used to that thinking...
I say sem-mature because they were past hyper-growth and now started valuing optimization. He was able to be major value-add because he was used to that thinking...
And the tech company didn't have that in their DNA.
So he found his experience to be highly complementary and he enjoyed work because he felt like an important contributor.
He took a pay cut and never was happier.
So he found his experience to be highly complementary and he enjoyed work because he felt like an important contributor.
He took a pay cut and never was happier.
He said being gone from finance lifted a huge weight. The mindset of finance seeped into him.
(it took me another decade to appreciate that moontowermeta.com/how-i-misappli…)
(it took me another decade to appreciate that moontowermeta.com/how-i-misappli…)
I suspect tech jobs can be just as soul-sucking as finance gigs, I know better than to be pollyannish about this crap. In fact, finance can prolly be less dissonant in the raw honesty of it if you are in the trading game. It's about little more than $$ to me.
I happen to like finance as a general puzzle (prolly more than I care to admit since I enjoy writing about it insofar as anyone can actually "like" writing) but the business of it is...well let's just say I'd be happy to spend brain cycles on other sht
Anyway, just a feeling I thought to share, esp since I know many people out here understand. This biz is filled with sociopaths esp as you climb. I probably don't even realize how much of a sociopath I am (i get hints every now and then)
Idk much about other fields and maybe all of this is an artifact of competition (actually reminds me in Zero to One how the virtue of a monopoly was lauded because of the downside of crushing effect of competition. Many would point to its author as sociopath in chief, ymmv)
But anyway, at an individual level I do think that the sense that your contribution matters and that you are not interchangeable is important. So it's worth thinking about what you are good at, who needs that, and who is in short supply of it.
Done with the🚿 thought now.
Done with the🚿 thought now.
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