Capitalism And Value Creation

A lot of students will be entering the job market soon. I want you to remember this graph.

The purple bar is the % of people hired during pandemic.
The orange bar is the % of people laid-off recently.

Were the students graduating in 2020–2021 5x better than the ones graduating now?

Have employees suddenly become skill-less and lazy?

No.

Big corporations hire and fire as required. There is no room for emotions, or feelings, when it comes to keeping shareholders happy.Business cycles and opportunities play a BIGGER role in your ‘placements’ than your talent do, at an aggregate level.

Companies WILL hire if there is opportunity in the market to grow. They will hire everyone, train, get the products built, and capitalize on the market opportunity.

Companies WILL fire if the market goes sour. They will not care about your skill or your loyalty. That is the hard truth of capitalism. Capital is emotionless. Do NOT take capital’s judgement of you as a marker of your worth and value.

Capital will run back to you when there is opportunity. Capital will discard you when there isn’t any. So yes, placements are important. But they are not the biggest take away from your college.

Instead, focus more on building life-long relationships. Building a network of human beings. Building connections and friendships. In college, or in job, don’t try to cut the line. Don’t let jealousy break bonds. And don’t let capital make you feel less.

‘Human Resources’ will fire even 20 year old ‘loyal’ employees through a cold email.

‘Human Beings’ will not. Value the people, not the placements.

For most small towners of India, life is a continuous struggle between big cities and their home towns.

You never belong to either of the places. For all practical purpose you want to stick to big cities, but once in every few months you go back to your roots to get recharge. Folks back at home feel you have made it large and having the best of life, while you feel they are living a more satisfactory and fulfilling life.

You want to compete with your peers to get ahead in your career , parallel you also want to quit everything and go back home to settle. There is no right or wrong answer here, eventually you need to decide what cost you want to pay.