So what? Why bother? Why would anyone bother becoming an expert? Nobody is going to pay attention to you. You're not going to get any more pay or respect or authority than people who are just good at bullshitting. You're not going to have an outsized influence on the world. So why bother?
Say, for sake of argument, that I'm in the top 0.1% of software engineers. Maybe the top 0.01%; say I'm utterly phenomenal. What the hell am I supposed to do about it? My choices are:
1. Work for a FAANG or adtech for 70 hours per week with a toxic manager on optimizing the psychological weapons and dark patterns they use to keep their users in a negative feedback cycle of dependence on their increasingly shitty and hostile products
2. Work for a bank or fintech as a middleman trying to get that extra 0.01% rent on other people's labor
3. Work in a niche industry or a consulting firm doing interesting and important work, but always for one client at a time, having an extremely limited impact (and limited pay to match), or
4. Start my own business and work 90 hour weeks spending 95% of my time on organizational business things that I'm bad at, leaving virtually no hours for the thing I'm a phenomenal super-expert at.
I've chosen #3, but I'm honestly sick of just continuing to just get better and better at software engineering and having it mean absolutely fuck-all. What's the point? Why would you ever bother becoming an expert?
Say, for sake of argument, that I'm in the top 0.1% of software engineers. Maybe the top 0.01%; say I'm utterly phenomenal. What the hell am I supposed to do about it? My choices are:
1. Work for a FAANG or adtech for 70 hours per week with a toxic manager on optimizing the psychological weapons and dark patterns they use to keep their users in a negative feedback cycle of dependence on their increasingly shitty and hostile products
2. Work for a bank or fintech as a middleman trying to get that extra 0.01% rent on other people's labor
3. Work in a niche industry or a consulting firm doing interesting and important work, but always for one client at a time, having an extremely limited impact (and limited pay to match), or
4. Start my own business and work 90 hour weeks spending 95% of my time on organizational business things that I'm bad at, leaving virtually no hours for the thing I'm a phenomenal super-expert at.
I've chosen #3, but I'm honestly sick of just continuing to just get better and better at software engineering and having it mean absolutely fuck-all. What's the point? Why would you ever bother becoming an expert?