Pushing advantages.

Today I thought….. about pushing advantages. 

This thought came out as a result of some long conversations with family and close friends. The idea of pushing one’s advantage.

When I study companies, it seems rather simple and logical for them to leverage competitive advantages they have to compound that advantage further. Seems simple enough no? I’d expect Bezos to double down and take over every industry he can with Amazon. Once they stop, that’s the start of decay. 

It’s also extremely easy to fault the management team as being ineffective when they do not leverage their advantage well. It reminds me of how critical I’ve been to large companies like banks for being so bureaucratic and thriving despite the awful deployment of strategy. Just think of any large organization. Governments fit this bill too. 

The number of investors who’ve been critical of companies that were 'once darlings’… those that fell from grace… like IBM, Coke, Wells Fargo etc…. There are just so many of them. There are also tons of case studies that universities teach where you learn why certain large/dominant companies failed (i.e. Kodak, Blackberry, Nokia). It all looks so easy and obvious and it makes the student in me seem so smart to see the flaws with 20/20 hindsight. 

Maybe it’s because companies are viewed as inanimate objects. In my short time working as a writer, one of the frequent comments from editors was how I personified companies. I never bothered asking ‘why’. I considered it a matter of opinion. 

But the reason why I think this matters because there is much to be said about applying what I learn about companies and the war of business to my own life. After all, isn’t life a company of its own? They do say the company is the actualization of the entrepreneur’s personality. I don’t remember who said it but I’m sure many have. 

Applying this to life brings upon the thought that the value of having any kind of advantage is the ability to take risks. If I were to simply think about risk as correlated to uncertainty, taking a risky career path is one that has greater uncertainty. It would seem logical for the advantaged to take more career risk. 

This doesn’t seem like profound knowledge with popular terms like “the rich get richer”. I know this tends to be directly applied to the mere compounding of capital but I think it’s something that can be applied more broadly to a larger % of a population. At least one that includes those from middle-class families like myself. 

There indeed are obvious structural advantages like being a citizen in Canada, having had an English education, etc… These are the easily overlooked ones that are all too often used for quick virtue signaling. Honestly, this doesn’t matter when I’m competing with others in similar shoes. I’m not competing with some kid from a third world country. I may sound crass… I feel a little knot in my stomach as I write this… but I really don’t think these factors are truly the ones that matter. 

I think the true advantage I, and many others, have are the structures after that. I’ve built enough career capital to be able to be employed by some stable job somewhere as an accountant making decent money. Though I haven’t done that in 6 years, I’m sure I can pick it up. Accounting rules don’t change fast enough. 

I don’t have a family to support either. Yes, filial piety is a consideration and thankfully, my father’s business is doing well enough for me to not feel any short-term pressures. I also have extremely patient parents who I believe defy all stereotypes laid out against immigrant parents. 

I note that it’s not Asian parents who want kids to get nice stable jobs in professional fields like medicine, engineering, etc…. From what I’ve seen, it’s all immigrant parents from every continent where the economy is still young. 

This is an advantage to explore. To try something different. Take risks that look ridiculous to those outside and even seem ridiculous to you as well. Purely driven by curiosity and idealistic (or is it optimistic?) beliefs. If someone like me with my career capital and support system chose to take on an obvious and stable job… I would be no different than the dominant companies of the past who slowly decayed away. 

It’s the companies that push on their advantage and take greater risks and try to innovate (and disrupt themselves in the process) that will succeed for decades on end. This seems to be the prudent path for people too. Especially if they have such advantages. Advantages that aren’t so uncommon. 

As I think about the friends (and the internal chatter in my mind) that are flabbergasted at the choices I’ve made in the last few years, I’d often wondered if what I was doing made sense and how crazy this must be. But now, I think it would be irrational for me not to be on a journey to build a career of my dreams. I mean, if I am in an advantageous position.. I should utilize that. 

Another funny thing is that most people are in advantageous positions. It just doesn’t seem like it when compared to others. But that’s all perception since you never know a person’s situation. It might be a better-kept secret than those inside companies. 

It’s obvious in military strategy that you should seek higher ground to your enemy. Most people are on hills, I for one think I’m on a pretty sizeable one, but no one will do anything until they get to stand on top of Everest. Such folly. 

This brings forth the quote by Mark Twain: 

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

It seems quite clear to me that most in the developed world… who are highly educated….with solid career experience… are squandering their advantage by acting like big, slow companies ripe for decay.