A very nice read as always. Footnote [4] is a bit off-putting though "[4] What should you do if your true calling is gaming the system? Management consulting."

A very nice read as always. Footnote [4] is a bit off-putting though "[4] What should you do if your true calling is gaming the system? Management consulting." Management consulting probably has more opportunities for gaming the system than startups do, and I concur. However, my friends who work at management consultants, from what I can tell based on anecdotal evidence, mostly perform value adding work for their clients, including performing managerial duties in for fast grown firms that do not have the talent at hand, performing macroeconomic research and factory floor optimization. My friends are mostly of engineering background, though, so that probably affects the sampling quite a bit. I would rephrase the dichotomy of not being about adding value vs. gaming the system but about creating something new versus optimizing and tinkering with an established system. As an example all the protagonists in "The art of profitability" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Profitability-Adrian-Slywotzky/dp/0446692271 http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Profitability-Adrian-Slywotzky...), for instance, deal mostly in a similar problem space as described by my friends' professional war stories.