Make Hay While the Sun Shines
There was a couple of different ways I could have gone this week. I could have talked about Silicon Valley ascending the Tower of Mauron to meet with Trumplethinskin, which is happening right now. Or I could have discussed the official launch of Google's driverless car company, Waymo. For a brief moment I even thought about highlighting the public service the Hamilton Electors might perform on Monday, but the inevitable shitstorm wasn't worth the spike in @TNA"'s blood pressure.
Instead I decided to write about something near and dear to all our hearts: avoiding the indignity of being forced to perform back alley handies in our twilight years just to be able to afford cat food.
If you're in your 20's or 30's right now, take heed. These are the prime earning years of your life. Make hay while the sun shines, because it isn't going to last long. If current trends continue, you'll likely be forced to retire by age 50.
Thanks to the one-two punch of automation and disappearing borders, experienced old folks are no longer in demand. Ageism is present in almost every field today, and it's absolutely rampant in tech. Where a middle manager in his 50's would have been a sought-after hire 20 years ago, today he's corporate poison with his mortgage and college-aged kids. They're just too expensive.
What counts as expensive workers?
- Group A: Large populations of low-skilled workers (varying in age) who require lots of benefits. Companies will look to replace groups of ten or even hundreds of people with one computer to reduce costs.
- Group B: 20- to 50-year-olds who have the expertise and experience to manage people and machines. These people command a spectrum of salaries but are willing and able to work efficiently relative to their compensation expectations. They're still "expensive," but the ROI remains palatable since machines cannot run completely independently or manage people … yet.
- Group C: 50+ year olds who are extremely skilled and experienced workers. They can effectively manage people and machines but require very high salaries. Often, due to realities of aging, they cannot operate at same levels of efficiency as Group A or B. This makes them "expensive."
We've all had an elderly Uber driver or barista. While I'm sure a few of them like being there, most of them don't. And if you're on WSO, you definitely don't want some drunk 22-year old puking in your car when you're 50.
If you're good at your job, there will come a point when you price yourself out of the market. I'm not talking about Wall Street necessarily, because the odds of most of you staying on Wall Street for your career are pretty slim. But once you're in a corporate gig and you spend a few years climbing the ladder, you'll see that things top out for the majority of workers before age 60, and lately before age 50.
I realize that's grim, but forewarned is forearmed. Start saving a lot. For the love of all that is good and holy, develop a side hustle. It may end up being the thing you come to rely on in old age.
I got lucky when I was younger and made a bunch of money. But even I feel the crunch and I'm only 47 years old. For good or ill, I've held senior positions in the companies I've been associated with over the years, so I'm finding that I'm a bit pigeonholed when it comes to interesting projects.
Earlier this year I lost a cool opportunity to someone younger despite assuring the CEO I was fine with the compensation (which was admittedly mediocre, but it was interesting work). We recently connected at a cocktail party and I asked her where the wheels fell off and she told me they figured the money wasn't enough to keep me long term, and they didn't want to go through the process again a year or two down the line. As a non-profit, they'd have had to hire me at the top end of their range and have nowhere to grow from there, while they could hire who they eventually went with for considerably less and afford a few raises over the years.
Ironically, I've been volunteering there ever since, so they got me for free.
Anyway, as we wind down 2016 and you all look to what 2017 and beyond brings, be sure to calibrate your expectations to the reality that you might be out of work by 50. Here on Wall Street, it's what most of us shoot for anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Seriously, though, start socking it away, investing, and side hustling your ass off. If this past election showed us anything, it's that we're deeply committed to applying 20th century solutions to 21st century problems, and that doesn't bode well for the average American.
Don't end up that creepy old guy with the callouses in the alley.
I fucking hate Hamilton.
The play, or the president? I'm referring to the electoral college members calling themselves Hamilton Electors.
These guys: http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/
Oh, I'm a moron.
The play.
But I am sick of these faithless electors. Although, it is essentially the premise of the electoral collage so I will suck it up and deal with it.
EDIT - What I really hate about those fuckers is that want to push Kasich. Like bro, you want to be faithless, cool, but you pick the next dude who got the most electoral votes - Cruz. You don't pick the one guy who basically no Republicans wanted.
Fuck, pick Rubio. Pick Romney. But fuck Kasich. Weird pizza eating mofo.
Yeah, that's an odd choice. I'm just guessing, but I think they're touting Kasich because they can get a few faithless electors on the Clinton side to go along with him. I guess the argument is he was the last to drop out? Dunno.
Kasich seems like the guy who would forgive you for fucking his wife
Treasury Secretary* (sorry to be that guy Eddie)
I feel like s high schooler asking this, but how exactly do you identify a side-hustle?
Anything that brings in income outside of your primary income source. Passive income (income you don't actually have to trade labor for) is preferable, but anything that diversifies your income stream away from just one source.
I know WHAT a side hustle is, but have been struggling to figure out HOW to develop one, or identify something that works for me.
Does that make sense?
I don't think enough people realize how close AGI is. Once AGI is released, you can basically say goodbye to 80% of jobs.
And don't say "not in my lifetime". There are relatively grounded predictions that it could hit by 2030.
AGI is not close to being released ...
I consider the next 30 years to be pretty close. Ray Kurzweil thinks we will have implanted AI by 2030.
http://aiimpacts.org/category/ai-timelines/predictions-of-human-level-a…
Funny that you say that. Seems to me everywhere I have gone so far in my short finance career I have been surrounded by dinosaurs...
Think there'll be a 1 or none child policy in the future as robots automate work- like you'd have to apply for a license to have a child ? Think about it, you no longer need 7 billion people straining the natural resources of earth and we won't be able to ship that many to potentially colonize Mars. The currency of the future would be either robots, or time?
Check out Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
why focus on the big bad robots replacing the need for humans when the same technology can be applied to finding sustainable food sources for 7+ billion people with improvements to agriculture technology and increasing arable land due to higher rates of urbanization?
Orr or -
We cut this thing down to 4 billion useful people and don't have to strain our resources as much. Mathematically we'd have less poor people and disease.
Solutions I've got them, but nobody ever comes to me for the answers.
Robotic is going to cause a wave of Luddism of epic proportions.
zerojb34 Why save? The reality of what you're predicting is either mass scale human unrest resulting in wealth being meaningless. Or, mass scale enslavement by those who own this technology. Also leading to wealth being meaningless. Automation as it stands right now really only has 3 path ways: Human rebellion, human enslavement, or Universal Basic Income. None of which require saving.
Btw one of the biggest implications of UBI is that it'll murder social mobility for good. The competition for the few jobs will become enormous, the rest of society will be between those who can live off parents wealth invested in stocks and those who have to live off UBI.
Yeah if anyone thinks nepotism is bad now...
Amazon air made its first drone delivery today:
You can say goodbye to all delivery jobs within the next decade.
Honestly, I've entertained the idea of side-hustle for a long time. The struggle is coming up with one as I am not particularly a creative person. I always think about what I can possibly develop if I have about 2 hours that I can dedicate everyday.
the side hustle starts off simple and often falls in your lap. The guy who devastated the private offshore wealth industry made cash cleaning his neighbors windows and shampooing carpets on weekends while working at State Street during the week. A friend from college bought a few retail stores and managed them at/on night weekends while doing something else during the week. part of the thought process is that the time you spend on your side gig reduces the time spent consuming/ spending resulting in a higher savings rate...
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