
Elon Musk: ‘Too many smart people go into finance and law’ - starpilot
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/elon-musk-too-many-smart-people-go-into-finance-and-law.html
======
d357r0y3r
Wow. HN commenters really missed the point here.

The point is that not that smart people who went into finance and law somehow
fucked up. It may be a perfectly rational and good choice for them.

The point is that smart, hard-working people tend to get funneled into one of
a handful of professions, and at this point, I would even include software in
that handful. It would better if we had smart people also going into other,
more underserved fields that are in dire need of innovation.

~~~
DevopsQuestions
Can you list fields that you feel are in dire need of innovation? Genuinely
curious.

~~~
stcredzero
Teaching. In all the fields, both the popular and unpopular ones.

Epidemiology and Public Health. The capability for disaster response hasn't
increased with gains in technology. Clearly, the way technology has increased
the dangers of contagious disease has far outstripped the technology driven
capacity for containing outbreaks.

Discourse and News Media. Right now, the incentives and technology align in
such a way, that Social Media becomes an outrage spreading and viral
amplification machine.

(Obligatory link. It's practically my personal religion by now:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc)
)

It turns out the Internet isn't for raising human discourse and encouraging
brilliant thought. It's for preventing good thinking by fomenting interfering
emotions and replacing actual thought with its doppelganger, ideology. And
what's big tech's response to the above? Things which aren't technically
censorship, but which insidiously have the same effect. Clearly, something is
wrong with this picture.

~~~
nsgi
There are already more people who want to be journalists than there is work. I
imagine it's the same situation with funding for public health research. I'd
imagine that's the main limiting factor.

~~~
stcredzero
_There are already more people who want to be journalists than there is work._

That is part of the problem. The tech giants created infrastructure that 1)
has enabled a cottage industry of independent journalism and 2) has completely
disrupted traditional news business models. Then, the same large companies
proceed to ink sweetheart deals with the dying large media companies, while
jerking around the small independent journalists. Just as in the music
industry, the endless supply of new aspiring media stars, combined with their
control of the technology and their lobbying for favorable laws, has gained
them _carte blanche_ to say, "my way, or the highway" to the emerging
independents. All the above basically sets them up to control most all future
societal discourse -- particularly by less than completely transparent means
that strangely resemble censorship.

The tech giants control the newest, best conduits for future information and
media. Given what we've seen of their stewardship, citizens should indeed be
concerned.

------
Waterluvian
There was an article the other day that quoted someone saying, "the greatest
minds of our generation are focused on making people click more ads."

And I think there's a lot of truth to that. If you work at Facebook or Google
or other companies, you've been convinced that you're the best of the best.
The brightest of our generation. But ultimately all your work leads to selling
ads.

That's what's so attractive about Musk. He's a bizarre, often unhealthy mind.
But he's dead focused on numerous businesses that have a considerably greater
point than boosting ad impressions.

And I think he continues to poorly communicate that frustration: way too
little of our high tech industry is focused on true innovation for the
betterment of humanity. I wish there were more non-Musks we could cheer for.

My takeaway from his musings is that too many strong minds are funnelled into
industries that don't push the envelope in more directions.

~~~
jeffnappi
>If you work at Facebook or Google or other companies, you've been convinced
that you're the best of the best. The brightest of our generation. But
ultimately all your work leads to selling ads.

This may be somewhat true, but on the bright side these companies have made
immense contributions to open source software. And that ultimately has a
positive impact to humanity on a broad scale.

~~~
starpilot
I think a cure for COVID-19 would be 10,000x more valuable than reactjs.

~~~
aianus
I guarantee you someone is using MapReduce or Tensorflow or Kubernetes to
fight COVID-19 right now.

------
data4lyfe
Seems like a comment that was reserved for pre-2010s when medicine, law, and
finance were the only ways to make six figures out of school.

Nowadays it seems more and more common that this phrase is "Too many smart
people go into working on ad optimization".

~~~
davidwihl
But ad optimization has led to many other technical innovations in ML and
scalability. I don’t think the same can be said about law school.

Disclosure: work on ad tech at Google. Opinion my own.

~~~
forgot_again
Also ad optimization has brought in revenue for a commercial entity (Alphabet)
that is willing and eager to pour its resources into amazing and beneficial
things that a Law firm or Bank simply would never think to invest in building
themselves.

~~~
iamacyborg
On the other hand, banks aren't building systems to extract more and more
private information from individuals. The harm coming from a business like
Alphabet significantly outweights the beneficial things they do.

~~~
pb7
They don’t need to when they can charge you a $50 fee for keeping an account
open that costs them virtually nothing to maintain and lending you money at
virtually no risk because the Fed can just print more in case they mess up.

> The harm coming from a business like Alphabet significantly outweights the
> beneficial things they do.

Doubt it. This is first world privileged thinking.

------
boltzmannbrain
Senior year of Mechanical Engineering undergrad, professors would legitimately
get upset with students for taking jobs in finance and consulting. They
wouldn't hold back, saying quite literally "this is a waste of your
education."

~~~
chroem-
Is it though? The alternative being an exciting career in HVAC, which many MEs
find themselves in. Those air conditioners don't install themselves. I've been
there and done that, and really I have no regrets moving on from an underpaid,
underappreciated field of study.

~~~
boltzmannbrain
FWIW much of my class went on to Boeing, SpaceX, GE (wind turbines, not
appliances), Shell, NASA, ...

------
jseliger
Legal academic Paul Campos's book _Don 't Go To Law School (Unless)_ agrees
with the "too many people go into law" point:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2012/11/11/dont-go-to-law-school-
unl...](https://jakeseliger.com/2012/11/11/dont-go-to-law-school-unless-paul-
campos/). But the number of people taking the LSAT has fallen by half since
the Great Recession, at least last time I saw the data; it might have grown
again since. But these days, most generically smart people who don't know what
to do with their lives are probably better off doing a CS degree or coding
boot camp than law school.

~~~
clairity
law has a serious conflict of interest: it's a profession that gains by
fostering and even fomenting disagreement.

reducing it's stature and influence might lead to a more harmonious society.

~~~
dvtrn
That’s quite the simplification of the practice of law isn’t it?

~~~
clairity
no, it's not reductive of the whole field, just describing an inescapable
aspect of it: to make arguments.

------
Traster
I don't think we should spend too much time taking Musk seriously. There are
interesting discussions to be had about exponential returns and the
structuring of society in a way that rewards producing things, but that's not
relevant. This is just some guy trying to justify himself.

>Making a car is an honest day’s living, that’s for sure

Yes, and I'm sure the class of people who work in car factories and have seen
their wealth drop further and further and further over the last 30 years
really appreciate how honest their living is.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
I agree, it gets old.

But I do think his point needs to be taken. We don't value
engineering/science/solving hard problems enough in the US.

------
cmckn
Tangential, but I think the underlying issue is that too many people (smart or
not) are herded into careers they don't want, simply so they can earn enough
money to have the lifestyle they want. There are very few careers in America
today that will enable a "middle class" (whatever that means nowadays)
lifestyle. A nice car, a vacation every once in a while, a house to call your
own, etc. "Smart" people often make the decision to obtain financial success
via whatever means necessary, because being poor in America is decreasingly
dignified and increasingly dangerous. And there is no "middle" option. I have
no proposed solutions, just some bleak observations.

------
checkyoursudo
I am not saying that I am smart. But I will say that I regret having gone into
law.

Regret is too strong of a word. I don't regret it. Law is fun and you can make
a lot of money. Who doesn't like that? But, I had been dissuaded from getting
a CS degree at university. It was partly because my dad was a SWE for one of
the big ones when I was young, and I was a rebellious kid who could be swayed
away from something I loved in part by not wanting to be like him. And, like I
said, law was a field where I could make a lot of money. Back then, I didn't
realize that I could have done CS without being like him.

Rather, I regret it because I could have spent these years doing something
that I loved.

Anyway, I am rectifying that now by doing a masters in cognitive science with
a goal of researching human curiosity and building curious machines. In other
words, I am trying to rectify the error I made the first time around where I
went into something for reasons other than because I really wanted to.

I would also note that way way way too many not-smart people go into law and
finance, as well. But I'm not sure there is much you can do about that.

------
bullen
There is a broader underlying thing going on here: Japan has removed all
humanities at their universities.

There are only 4 interesting fundamental categories of knowledge: Math,
Physics, Chemistry and Biology; everything else is made up by man from nothing
and it will return to nothing after all surplus energy (that gave humans the
possibility to dream up all that crap in the first place) is consumed!

Hang on to your knowledge of nature people; because this society is going
Kansas.

~~~
phkahler
>> Hang on to your knowledge of nature people; because this society is going
kansas.

To make predictions about society dont you need an understanding of... I
dunno. Sociology, Psychology, Politics, Finance, or maybe History?

I dont remember societal forecasting in my STEM classes.

Not meant as a roast, just a mild reminder that the dominant force on earth is
people.

~~~
MiroF
I don't think that social scientists have a particular strong track record
with forward predictions and it is impossible to distinguish those who do from
those who don't.

~~~
apotheon
. . . and yet, if you wanted to improve your ability to make such predictions
about society, social sciences would be a better bet than chemistry.
Prediction, absent supernatural aid, requires understanding.

------
lrm242
Here’s an idea: don’t project your values or idea of worth on what other
people choose to do with their life. You’re not as righteous as you may think
you are, I guarantee it.

~~~
MiroF
> don’t project your values or idea of worth on what other people choose to do
> with their life.

Unless you're a moral relativist, why shouldn't I do this? I find this entire
attitude baffling.

If you went around assassinating people to make a living, I think I would be
fine in saying that you're an asshole, no?

------
xoxoy
Are people actually reading this at face value in a non ironic way...?

Tesla is Tesla because of an army of lawyers and financial engineering.

~~~
kami8845
What the hell are you talking about? Tesla is Tesla because of their
incredible engineering talent. The rest they do to amplify their car building
efforts. If you offered Elon 100 incredible engineers/lawyers/financiers,
he'll take the engineers every time.

How many car startups that achieve wide distribution has America had in the
past 100 years?

~~~
xoxoy
Elon’s 2 most important people at Tesla is his CFO and General Counsel. If you
think otherwise pay closer attention to his earnings calls.

~~~
jryle70
Why focus on earning calls and not, says, meetings with Chinese partners for
his Shanghai Gigafactory? CFO and legal counsels, or similar roles, are pretty
much always present in calls with investors for any public companies.

Also, what makes Tesla being Tesla is something invented centuries ago. The
battery.

------
justapassenger
Elon’s actions are very good example why people go into those professions.
He’s doing very high quality finance engineering at his companies and is
constantly causing legal troubles. That ensures big demand for those
professions.

------
dasudasu
Finance, when done right, is just the art of efficient capital allocation.
Producing the _right_ thing is also important.

~~~
MiroF
Most of finance that I can see seems to consist of investment firms hiring
lots of people with good credentials so that they can convince clients that
the efficient market hypothesis actually _doesn 't_ apply to their firm, then
making off with the profits.

There's a reason only market makers are the ones prop trading any more.

~~~
tryptophan
Luckily most people are starting to see the light of index investing. Good
times for these investment firms are coming to an end.

------
luckydata
Too many people listen to Elon Musk.

------
thatfrenchguy
You could easily say too many people go into tech to do ads as well.

~~~
generalpass
And too many engineers go into the defense industry.

~~~
almost_usual
The defense industry is why the internet exists.

You could argue both Tesla and SpaceX orient their goals around human survival
and defense. One for slowing down climate change, the other for interplanetary
colonization.

Fear motivates society into funding engineering projects and taking action.

~~~
generalpass
> The defense industry is why the internet exists.

The defense industry throws money at anything that seems to suit its needs.
Thus, claiming that without the defense industry we would never have the
Internet is not clear to me.

I am familiar with disproving negatives, but I don't find it to be a
compelling claim that the scientists involved would never have developed the
Internet.

For example, was the mother of all demos exclusively the result of actions
from the DoD? The innovative scientists and engineers at Xerox PARC? Many of
the people involved in these things likely already theorized on how to build
this sort of stuff, and sought out the easiest route.

But the DoD comes with substantial amounts of other costs. For example, the
Vietnam war is largely understood to have been initiated by people within the
DoD complex and not the actions of foreign governments. During the war, the
DoD cronies forced soldiers to use a defective assault rifle that would leave
entire platoons with nothing but grenades and handguns to get slaughtered.
Agent Orange killed and continues to kill an incredible number of civilians in
Vietnam.

On balance, the DoD leads to horrific amounts of death and destruction using
engineers who may otherwise create things that would make people's lives
better. Further, significant innovations such as the Internet would most
likely still have been developed, just by some private entity or group of
entities where the scientist and engineers would have gone to work.

------
woranl
There is a cultural piece to this as well. For example in many Asian countries
(particularly in Hong Kong), engineers are often confused with technicians or
construction workers, which are generally not valued by the society. This
perception has an impact to future generation when picking career choice.

Basically, anyone can call him/herself an engineer and they generally don’t
have any engineering knowledge, training, or ethics. It’s unfortunate how
devalued the engineer title has become.

------
xoxoy
Perfect timing. Elon just tweeted: “ Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda
County immediately. The unelected & ignorant “Interim Health Officer” of
Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional
freedoms & just plain common sense!”

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259159878427267072?s=21](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259159878427267072?s=21)

------
ycombinete
It might not be the choice that will change the world for the better, but it
is most certainly a pragmatic one.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but in South Africa (where I’m from)
these two fields account for roughly 30% of all of our dollar millionaires.
I’m sure it’s the same/similar in the developed world.

------
amrrs
Btw, Elon Musk's entire podcast with Joe Rogan (the recent one from which this
came) is an interesting listen -
[https://youtu.be/RcYjXbSJBN8](https://youtu.be/RcYjXbSJBN8) especially the
parts where he talks about Neuralink, Mind Virus..

------
to11mtm
IDK how to respond to that. It's an industry that pays better.

In my career as a software dev, my options have fallen into three categories:

\- Projects interesting and challenging enough to devote time to, but subpar
pay.

\- Good pay but absolutely boring, career ending, mind numbing work.

\- Go to Fintech, work hard, get to work on interesting things, get paid well.

At least as far as finance in software is concerned, the smart people go into
it because it's one of the few fields where there's a better chance that there
are interesting problems to be solved. Finance is the only industry I've
worked in that paid more than lip service to scaling and high availability.

Admittedly, at least part of this is because of my location in the USA, and C#
as my language of choice.

------
organicfigs
I posted about this the other day in the Finnish thread - of course they are,
there's probably a 300% salary difference between a banker with 6 yoe and a
social welfare worker with 12+ yoe. You don't have fields attracting people
for purely financial incentives when the salary difference between these two
is more like 10-20% for a seasoned professional. It's an entire systematic
issue which has compounding effects, but when you mix in global instability,
food security, etc. would you rather play ball here or expatriate and take a
risk with the educational and career opportunities your children have
somewhere else.

------
nazgulnarsil
Too many smart people go into physics and math and try to build rockets rather
than solve any of our actual problems as a species. Because logic puzzles are
more fun.

------
drobert
That's definitely true in London for example. In software a job in a bank pays
~30% more. Fang companies pay on par or more in some cases but they have
higher entry criteria. So if you want to buy a house, have a family, finance
is a safe route.

I work in an investment bank in IT and have colleagues from top universities
doing boring jobs, at least in my view.

------
chewz
> Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is
> writing a book.

[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/56217-times-are-bad-
childre...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/56217-times-are-bad-children-no-
longer-obey-their-parents-and)

------
5cott0
> ‘Too many smart people go into finance and law’

This is overly simplistic black and white thinking.

Jane Street has probably done more to popularize functional programming then
any shop out there.

Even people who make stuff need effective legal counsel. Even if all they make
is memes that get them sued for libel.

------
stcredzero
There used to be this thing said about China vs. the US: That the leadership
of elites in China were mostly from Engineering backgrounds, while those in
the US went to Law School. The idea is that STEM people are better grounded in
the epistemological reality of an external objective universe that doesn't
care about your texts, your desires, or your ideology.

My Chinese wife tells me this had reversed itself somewhat under Xi Jinping.
(Re: Geeks, MOPS, and Sociopaths?) That regime's performance in the current
pandemic crisis would seem to support this, though that government's record
has been spotty to poor on the epistemology vs. ideology front for awhile.

The problem with spending so much of one's time wrangling texts which are
somewhat abstracted away from reality, is that one can lose touch with the
epistemological grounding of reality. One might even start to believe they can
start to rewrite reality through strong conviction.

Before all you fellow programmers out there start feeling smug, think about
this: As a programmer, one is primarily a wrangler of a particular kind of
text. Ever wonder about why so many conflicts in the programming "field" (""
are a reference to Alan Kay) have the tenor of medieval sectarian religious
squabbles?

------
tfehring
This may still be the case, but it’s definitely less true than it was in, say,
2005. Today’s closest equivalent IMO is ad/surveillance tech. Maybe management
consulting too, though I don’t know what share of management consultants are
actually smart.

~~~
MiroF
Management consulting and finance are still _huge_ on the east coast.

~~~
tfehring
Among the group of smart people Musk is referring to, though? My impression is
that there was a time when a plurality of, say, new physics PhDs were getting
snapped up by quantitative trading firms, and that nowadays they're going into
adtech ML roles instead.

~~~
MiroF
Eh - I think a lot of Physics PhDs still become quants, I say this having
majored in physics at one of these east coast universities.

Management consulting a little less so from PhD but definitely from undergrad.

------
bepvte
Why are we posting this guy? It seems like he's always just trying to make it
into headlines. "AI will kill us when its made in 3 years when we get into
mars" sure dude! Good luck on getting into twitter trends again, Elon.

------
_trampeltier
I will never understand people why work in law. You have to be smart, yes. It
is good paid, yes. But I see really no fun in that kind of work. If you are
creative in this work, you are just pain in the ass, who is looking for
loopholes.

~~~
cultus
I really don't think the life of the average working lawyer is like this, but
analyzing legal arguments can be really fascinating. If you like logic
puzzles, you're sure to like legal opinions. I had a bit of exposure to this
as an undergrad, and it was one of my favorite subjects. It actually made me
consider becoming a lawyer.

------
alibaba_x
The first thing Musk did after arriving to Canada as a 17 year-old was call up
senior bankers until he secured an internship at one of their banks.

He then got into online payments (X.com, PayPal) and the sale of his shares
allowed him to start SpaceX and buy Tesla.

So don't listen to what billionaires say and just look at what they do if you
don't want to get deceived by them.

~~~
nicoburns
I think that's precisely his point though. It's a waste to society to have
someone like Musk working in finance where he would largely be working on
financial gain for a small number of individuals. It would be much better for
society if our smartest individuals were working on real productivity gains
and value creation.

The problem is that a lot of the money is in things like finance and
advertising. We could absolutely restructure our economy so that wasn't the
case.

Musk makes a lot of grandiose statements, but he's spot on with this one.

~~~
aguyfromnb
> _It 's a waste to society to have someone like Musk working in finance where
> he would largely be working on financial gain for a small number of
> individuals._

Where on earth does this narrative come from that Musk isn't working for
financial gain?

The guy rammed a pay package beyond anything the world has ever seen past a
weak board, and just took his first payment, $700MM+ in equity, which is far
beyond what the company has ever earned in GAAP profits in its entire
existence.

If he doesn't care about money, how do you explain that?

~~~
nicoburns
I'm not saying that he isn't motivated by his individual financial gain. I'm
saying that the output of his work isn't for peoples' financial gain. He makes
cars, not financial instruments. And cars, unlike financial instruments
actually provide value to society.

I'm not saying that people don't care about money. I'm agreeing that they do.
And thus that it is important that as a society we distribute our money to
enterprises that are actually doing useful work. Precisely so that people who
are money-motivated (which is basically everyone to a greater or lesser
degree) will choose to work for these enterprises.

------
PeterStuer
The kind of law and finance Musk is likely referring to is the chicken game
red queen race. You need none of it unless your opponent reaches for it. A
classic prisoners dilemma leeching value all around.

------
kneel
Sure there is a need for finance, but overall the industry is bloated field
full of bad ideas, nepotism, leeches and outright corruption.

Musk is absolutely correct. People need to go back to making real things.

------
Supersaiyan_IV
It should say "too many people waste their innate talents on areas invented
solely by our crappy social structure".

------
swyx
am a smart person that went into finance. i agree.

im just not sooo sure that what im doing in tech is a lot better. it's better,
but how much better remains to be seen.

------
hyko
Kind of odd that Elon doesn’t count financial engineering as innovation, when
he’s bankrolled his dreams on the back of financial engineering innovation.

~~~
tim333
I think he would count innovation in finance as innovation but really 95%+ of
people in finance are not doing that.

------
Upvoter33
Lots of people agree with this - and it's not really news. Surprised there is
so much discussion here, just because Elon Musk said it.

------
kumarvvr
After his "Free America" comment, everything Musk says ought to be taken with
a pound of salt.

It is clear that there is not moral or ethical compass directing his actions.
Just a passion, which is good in itself, and has brought enormous good to the
world, directly or indirectly.

However, it's high time to stop seeing him as some sort of Tony Stark.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
Surely his "Free America" comment demonstrates he _is_ following a moral
compass, even if it's not aligned with yours.

~~~
MiroF
I don't think it demonstrates much of anything, except his opinion and way of
communicating on this particular issue.

------
okareaman
The way I read this is we have too many people being clever in unproductive
ways

------
lokl
I'd like to see more go into politics.

------
Mikeb85
He's not wrong. Smart people go into the careers that provide them with the
most personal benefit.

In the Soviet Union most smart people became scientists and the country over-
achieved in many domains related to science, but inevitably fell apart because
of lower living standards and still never achieved the heights of capitalist
societies who squander some smart people but create more wealth.

But in the end most of us are just trying to live life, no one wants to
sacrifice personal gain just so society can advance X amount quicker...

~~~
rafiki6
The Soviet Union didn't fall apart because of a low standard of living. There
were many other geopolitical factors at play but the big one was just an inept
government that declined with every new leader. Once you dismantle the cult of
personality around communist authoritarian leaders, your population starts
looking out for itself and begins to actively question the legitimacy of the
government.

------
seemslegit
Too many smart people care about stuff Elon Musk says.

EDIT: Changed my mind - not too many smart people in fact care about stuff
Elon Musk says.

~~~
yowlingcat
I'd amend what you say to "too many smart people remain entertained by the
outlandish stuff Elon Musk says" (and I'd put myself in that camp), but I
agree with the sentiment, as well as those voiced elsewhere in this thread,
that you should pay attention to what Elon Musk does and has done, and not so
much towards what he says.

~~~
cameronbrown
> you should pay attention to what Elon Musk does and has done, and not so
> much towards what he says

Hmm... I hear this argument about Trump from his supporters too.

~~~
cowmix
As a Musk fan and Trump not-a-fan, I can see your point.

BTW, _most_ Musk fans do not think this way. Most are frustrated by some of
the crazy crap he says or does (and therefor creates headlines) but 98% of
what he does _and_ says is mostly good stuff.

His COVID19 comments have been really trying on my patience too.

------
amai
They go where the money is!

------
lihaciudaniel
>Buffet fan

Well not like you have more money than him anyways

~~~
tim333
I think Musk and others misunderstand what Buffett does. His company employs
390,000 people. It's more than just stock picking. They also produces I think
more renewable energy more cost effectively than Musk's SolarCity. 2016:
"4,423 megawatts of wind generation owned and operated by our regulated
utilities is six times the generation of the runner-up utility."

------
seemslegit
Elon Musk prefers his knowledge and skill workers financially and legally
illiterate, understandably so.

------
ausjke
Follow the money. Smart people go into finance and law.

H1Bs fills the STEM positions.

This is how it plays nowadays, it's called globalization of IT.

I don't like that.

