People who never had a real job don't know that they never had a real job.
@nntaleb Did you ever have a job? Entropy guy
@nntaleb I define a real job as: if you fail it’s obvious and if you succeed it is obvious. Did you remember to drain the water heater? Did you put the right rating tires on? Were the goods delivered on time and to the right place? A lot of this fugazi world is just shifting blame and
@nntaleb In the rush for social prestige, we’ve replaced true craftsmanship, genuine engineering and real technical work with meaningless bureaucratic roles. Those claiming usefulness are often just copies, adding zero value while real creators toil unseen.
@nntaleb I’ve never had a job. I know I’ve never had a job…
@nntaleb U dont know the struggle of being the CEO of Unemployment
@nntaleb "I've never worked a day in my life. Don't give me that real-world shit." Eugene Fama
@nntaleb Work equivalent of the "in academia there's no difference between the real world and academia..." quote. Both very true.
@nntaleb Someone could try to name examples of fake jobs, and the ones offended by it will know they are working a fake job
@nntaleb Every evening, when I come home, plop down on the couch, throw on the Beach Boys’ 1979 album LA (Light Album), and glaze over, my son is like, “Dad, what the fuck are you doing?” I say, “Someday, boy, you’ll understand. Someday…”
@nntaleb From the guy whose current “real job” is retweeting antisemitic hot takes between lectures on convexity. Truly the prophet of robustness.
@nntaleb deep down they know. if you tell them in an incisive way you get a reaction that makes you think "never call a crazy person crazy"
@nntaleb But they think they do and that’s enough to coach you on how to do yours
@nntaleb Anybody that hasn't been paid per diem (Performance Pay) has never had a real job. Read "The Sin of Wages: Where the Conventional Pay System has Led Us and How" by William B. Abernathy. Full disclosure. I've a way been paid by performance.
@nntaleb The bubble is real... when your biggest stress is "what should I work on today" instead of "will I make rent this month" you're living in a completely different reality Most people grinding 9-5s would kill for those problems
@nntaleb You need friction to know you had none.
@nntaleb That’s the optimistic take. I meet people all the time who have been working for twenty years or more and have yet to witness real success. They’ve seen people slash and burn - and get bonuses from doing so, but they’ve never seen improvement or growth.
@nntaleb Agreed, but I counter that investment banking is not a real job. It really bloody isn't.
@nntaleb It isn’t just ignorance, it’s a kind of epistemic bubble.
@nntaleb A job is like deadlifts: you don’t know what it is until you’ve actually lifted.
@nntaleb Cycle as old as time. With advancement in society, roles change and so do the nature and title of jobs. As long as one is doing an honest work and getting rewarded. That's a real job.
@nntaleb Sometime people with no real job make more than those with real jobs
@nntaleb Note to grown-ups: A real job is an activity that addresses need across a whole spectrum of parameters, from ethicality to sustainability. This has nothing to do with our non-society's regressive and psychopathic notion that 'a real job' means 'making money for the boss class'.
@nntaleb Finance and Consulting aren’t real jobs
@nntaleb So true!!
@nntaleb Is trading options a real job?
@nntaleb What is a 'real' job exactly? Is it subjective?
@nntaleb what qualifies as a real job
@nntaleb Pareto principle?
@nntaleb Oh we know
@nntaleb As my daughter would say “Bars”!
@nntaleb Proverbs 12:11
@nntaleb Mamdani?