> Salesmen, in any field other than sales, are like an invasive species who outcompete the natives with their superior social polish, but who struggle to actual

> Salesmen, in any field other than sales, are like an invasive species who outcompete the natives with their superior social polish, but who struggle to actually do anything, which leads to systemic underperformance and the erosion of trust, which only makes the competitive necessity of salesmanship even greater As a graduate student it's hard not to internalize this framework even though it's soul destroying and leads all too predictably to poor science If you're very lucky your career success might be orthogonal to or even aligned with your sense of curiosity and intellectual honesty, more often they're antipathetic and you will have to sacrifice one for the other