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Warren Buffett has said “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.” Where the castle is a metaphor for the business and the mo

by tjmc 15y ago

Warren Buffett has said “In business, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats’.” Where the castle is a metaphor for the business and the moat its competitive advantage against competitors. The wider the moat the better. My definition of “smart work” is work that simultaneously earns income and widens the moat between you and your competitors by extending your skillset in areas of demand. With every respect for your father’s impressive work-ethic, if you worked as hard as he did to become, say, an expert geophysicist specialising in deep-sea oil extraction, where do you think your income would be at the same point of your life with the same amount of work effort applied? That’s the difference between “hard” and “smart” work.

kamaal 15y ago
My dad's initial investment to afford a car was nothing. He drove some ones else's car before he got himself one. My initial investment is college education and daily learnings. In order to make money/profit you need to apply seed investment and then work over it in time. Either way you will end up working. Its the seed investment that makes the difference here. In order to work in the petrochemical industry, you really need to account for what seed investment got you there. Once that is in place. Its back to your plain old hard work to grow from there. It impossible to generate value without working for it.
- tjmc 15y ago
  I agree completely. But the point of working smart is to pick a profession where continuous refinement of your skill-set will put you in both higher demand and rarer company. This is hard to do as a taxi driver. It's hard to do in IT too when you pick the wrong technology stack to specialize in (eg. Flash or VB6) and have to start again back in the pack at some point. edit - just to expand a little. In my experience, most people get to a point in their career where they think their 'moat' is wide enough. They stop learning or extending their skillset. Now it's important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean they've stopped working hard. They might be pulling 80+ hour weeks. But if it's the same work they've done before, their career is now a cash-cow. In IT this is especially dangerous because the industry evolves so fast, that you can be overtaken by skilled competitors using more efficient technologies.

by tjmc 15y ago

kamaal 15y ago

My dad's initial investment to afford a car was nothing. He drove some ones else's car before he got himself one. My initial investment is college education and daily learnings. In order to make money/profit you need to apply seed investment and then work over it in time. Either way you will end up working. Its the seed investment that makes the difference here. In order to work in the petrochemical industry, you really need to account for what seed investment got you there. Once that is in place. Its back to your plain old hard work to grow from there. It impossible to generate value without working for it.

tjmc 15y ago
I agree completely. But the point of working smart is to pick a profession where continuous refinement of your skill-set will put you in both higher demand and rarer company. This is hard to do as a taxi driver. It's hard to do in IT too when you pick the wrong technology stack to specialize in (eg. Flash or VB6) and have to start again back in the pack at some point. edit - just to expand a little. In my experience, most people get to a point in their career where they think their 'moat' is wide enough. They stop learning or extending their skillset. Now it's important to note that this doesn't necessarily mean they've stopped working hard. They might be pulling 80+ hour weeks. But if it's the same work they've done before, their career is now a cash-cow. In IT this is especially dangerous because the industry evolves so fast, that you can be overtaken by skilled competitors using more efficient technologies.