This article is bordering on tautological, with post-hoc rationalization.
Something is a bargain when it has a large ratio of value to cost.
The trouble with career choices is that the value is in the future - it is, at best, only probabilistically estimable.
Thus this advice merely moves the problem from choosing between alternatives to estimating future value of those choices. This doesn't really decrease the problem difficulty at all.
The justification for "methodology" is post-hoc. There was no guarantee he'd pick up rare and valuable skills in academia; to the degree that he did, using that fact as justification is very shaky.
I've worked with a number of people who spent years in academia and came out in varying states, some less suitable for the workplace, others enamoured with a way of living more compatible with student life than professional life, others more interested in digging into problems than getting things done, etc. I think these risks are real if you're aimless on a post-grad path.
Survivorship Bias. Take existing successful people, ask them what they did and what traits they had, and then draw a conclusion that those actions/traits lead to success. Ignore the people who also did those things and had those traits who did not meet with success.
See also: any “how to succeed in business” book like Good To Great.
Something is a bargain when it has a large ratio of value to cost.
The trouble with career choices is that the value is in the future - it is, at best, only probabilistically estimable.
Thus this advice merely moves the problem from choosing between alternatives to estimating future value of those choices. This doesn't really decrease the problem difficulty at all.
The justification for "methodology" is post-hoc. There was no guarantee he'd pick up rare and valuable skills in academia; to the degree that he did, using that fact as justification is very shaky.
I've worked with a number of people who spent years in academia and came out in varying states, some less suitable for the workplace, others enamoured with a way of living more compatible with student life than professional life, others more interested in digging into problems than getting things done, etc. I think these risks are real if you're aimless on a post-grad path.