One of my company’s senior executives was retiring. He was so senior that his compensation package was part of the company’s annual report, so I knew he made more than $10 million a year. At some point, over drinks, he told a group of more junior employees I was part about the portfolio of properties he had accumulated all over the United States.
The day he was leaving, there was a celebration in the courtyard. Speeches were given, none of them particularly rousing. The retiring executive stood there, jaw hanging slack, lids drooping, looking forward to it being over. Asked what he had planned next in his life, he replied, “Absolutely nothing.” He seemed like a broken man, not necessarily by his work, but by age. He had worked for the company for the last two decades, and it seemed like he hadn’t had time for much else.
Adam Mastroianni has made a similar observation:
It took me a long time to understand this. In my early 20s, when I was at the bottom of every ladder that I aspired to ascend, I assumed the people at the top of those ladders must be pretty great. How wise these incentive-maxxers must be, how cool and smart, to have the things that everybody else wants!
But over the years, as I had the opportunity to meet some of these captains of industry, these Grand Pooh-Bahs and Distinguished Scholars, I’ve realized how wrong I was. They only seemed enviable because I was looking at them from a distance, so all I could see was what they had. Up close, when you can see what they are, it becomes clear that only a few of these ladder-toppers are indeed wise and cool. More often, they’re sniveling little twerps. They’re spiritually chinless. They have no convictions, no passions, no purpose other than ladder-climbing. It’s sad to watch them, these people who have everything except the one thing that actually matters.
Mastroianni’s essay is about incentives and it’s worth reading in its entirety. Here are some related insights by C. S. Lewis and David Foster Wallace.
Here are some related insights by C. S. Lewis and David Foster Wallace.
Nehaveigur 