Is Career Optionality Good or Bad?
Optionality feels exciting. People love having optionality in their careers. It provides a unique sense of power that they get to decide what to work on and where to spend time.
Earlier in your career, you’re constantly trying to portfolio manage your risk. Jumping from one job to another every 24 months to seek a better title, better brand on your resume, and slightly more compensation. Your friends constantly ask you “what’s next?” at happy hours, and your mind is constantly searching for the next ladder. This cycle continues for a few years and then you realize that most changes were horizontal in nature; diagonal at best.
To build anything meaningful, you need to focus and commit. You can’t build anything important in 24-36 months. It takes years to solve hard problems and a relentless mindset that’s focused.
Portfolio managing your career enables you to go mile wide, but inch deep.
Earlier in your career, it makes sense to explore new opportunities across different categories, companies and teams. After a few years, it’s a good idea to settle down, focus and commit to solving problems that you care about.
Optionality is rewarded earlier in your career which gives you a hall pass to jump around. The opposite is also true. People earlier in their career that stick around will have greater sets of opportunities within an organization. Companies reward loyalty and tenure.
Generally speaking, the privilege of jumping around starts to diminish as you get later in your career and seek executive positions. CEOs want execs that will commit and stick around for the long run and to ensure they’re here when things get tough. There’s a reason why board members push to having most executive comps tied to stock programs and vesting schedules. It’s a forcing function to get people to stay.
So, is career optionality good or bad?
It depends on the stage of your career. It’s probably good to have some optionality earlier in your career. It’s bad to jump around later in your career. My recommendation is to find those career moments in your current job; and if it doesn’t exist, then try to create them. This is a better path to pursue than to simply jump to the next gig.
In either case, I encourage you to proactively create a career framework for yourself. The difference between living life and leading life is having a proactive mindset of planning.
Reading
Time to start a consumer brand? Retail is being disrupted faster than anyone expected. Direct to consumer is becoming a staple as a distribution channel. Now is a great time to start a consumer brand. Link.
How to operate a SaaS startup. Excellent read on constructing a growth program for SaaS companies. There are 4 key functions in any SaaS company: 1) product, 2) sales, 3) marketing, 4) finance. Constructing goals quarterly, aligning sales-finance teams and product-marketing teams together to ensure synergies. Having “The Cadence” in-place reduces growing pains and builds a system that works for all key players in the company. Link.
(UK) Declines Across Traditional Media Will Drag Total Ad Spend Down by 7.5% in 2020. Digital advertising is on a tear as eComm is seeing significant growth across the board. Traditional media, however, has the opposite story. It is still a significant part of overall media spend. We will observe similar trends in the US as companies reduce costs due to top line revenue impact from COVID. Link.
US looking to ban TikTok? This is a start to a long few months ahead. TikTok has already been banned in India and the US will take a long and deep look at the app and its privacy issues. Facebook and other American-based social apps are unable to operate in China. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if TikTok is completely blocked in the US before the elections. Link.
Uber buying Postmates for $2.65B in all stock deal. The food delivery space is a grind. It’s a race to the bottom with constant price cuts in effort to gain market share. This acquisition feels like a plan B for Uber. Postmates is the smallest of the major food delivery apps. In May 2020, Doordash captured 44% of market share, Grubhub at 23%, UberEats at 23% and Postmates at 8%. There will likely be more synergies built over time, but Uber will still sit at a distant # 2 in this category from Doordash. Time will tell how this category will consolidate, but as of now, it’s hard to see profitability near in-sight. Link.
Initial unemployment claims touch 1M+ for 16th straight week. This isn’t a surprise anymore, but should be very concerning. There’s already a large delta between equity markets and the real economy. Which will cause massive income inequality in the next 10 years. We cannot and will not be able to return to normal unless labor markets recover. Link.
United Airlines to furlough ~50% of their staff this fall. The story doesn’t end here. We will see the majority of these jobs not come back until there’s a vaccine, and even then, United will play it safe and keep costs low for the foreseeable future. American Airlines and other large operators that have meaningful domestic presence with international exposure do the same. Link.
MAGA: Masks are great again! Lol