FT: “For many people, the most meaningful careers do not follow straight lines. I spent two years as an engineer and three years on Wall Street before I found my place in venture capital. At the time, those moves looked like detours. In hindsight, they were formative. They provided perspective, skills and clarity that no carefully crafted résumé ever could. That experience is not unusual. In my research I have found countless examples of successful people who switched careers midstream. It often takes time to figure out what work truly makes you happy. When you are driven by curiosity — as opposed to society’s conveyor belt — your career feels less like work. When you love what you do, the more you want to do it and the better you will become, increasing your chances of success, financial and otherwise. This is where the conversation needs to shift, especially for parents. Wanting your child to be financially secure is understandable. Even the great Willie Nelson suggested mamas make their kids “be doctors and lawyers and such.” But in today’s world, that instinct can backfire.”
WSJ: “Today, Nvidia is nearly 20 times as valuable and five times as profitable as IBM was back then, adjusted for inflation. Yet it employs roughly a 10th as many people. That simple comparison says something profound about today’s economy: Its rewards are going disproportionately toward capital instead of labor. Profits have soared since the pandemic, and the market value attached to those profits even more. The result: Capital, which includes businesses, shareholders and superstar employees, is triumphant, while the average worker ekes out marginal gains. The divergence between capital and labor helps explain the disconnect between a buoyant economy and pessimistic households. It will also play an outsize role in where the economy goes from here.”
Shankkar Aiyar: “India is an outlier among outliers. It has vaulted from the 10th largest economy to the fourth largest in the world in just over a decade. It has evaded the law of necessary and sufficient conditions. It is the only economy to reach the status of the ‘fourth largest economy’ without the power of global brands and banks of global size to fund market expansion.”
Mark Roberge: “The current AI-native B2B software startups face significant risk from foundational model expansion, circular revenue redundancy, high valuation overhang, and first-mover (dis)advantage. A potential bright spot in the cohort may be vertical AI startups, where lower TAMs and higher regulatory compliance product requirements shield them from foundational model disruption, valuation overhang, and CIO “build” tendencies. In the long term, early followers starting in the “trough of disillusionment” phase may take their respective categories at the expense of the first movers.”
Z Reitano: Economics of a Super Bowl ad.
