
Why you need a degree to work at Bigco - byrneseyeview
http://weblog.raganwald.com/2005/07/why-you-need-degree-to-work-for-bigco.html
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Alex3917
There's two types of jobs. Those where what you do creates value for people
within the company, and those where what you do creates value for people
outside the company. You only need a degree for the former.

Rule of thumb: Ask someone what their greatest accomplishment is. If what they
say is relative, i.e. "I am better than someone else at ___," then chances are
they aren't very good at anything.

Avoid those whose self-worth comes from comparing themselves to others, be it
through degrees or GPA or money, etc. They're losers and hanging out with them
will keep you from accomplishing anything in life.

The funniest thing is that investment banks hire based on GPA even though
there is zero correlation between GPA and alpha, and alpha is 100% of your job
performance.

~~~
ecuzzillo
a) What's alpha? b) There are some things where relative accomplishments are
OK, like sports. Saying you're an Olympic gold medalist means you're just
better than everybody else, but it's still quite an accomplishment.

~~~
Alex3917
Each portfolio has an expected return based on risk. The higher the risk, the
higher the return has to be to justify the risk. Alpha is the difference
between the expected return based on the risk of the portfolio and the actual
return. So positive alpha is good, negative alpha is bad. Traders are
compensated based on their alpha.

My point about the relative accomplishment thing is just that you can go
through your entire life trying to beat other people at stuff, but just
because you can beat someone at something doesn't mean you're making the world
a better place.

Being an Olympic athlete is certainly an accomplishment, although hopefully
one goes on to do stuff that benefits others. And I say that as someone who
pulled a 500 meter piece on the rowing machine that was faster than ltwt
Olympic standard this afternoon.

