There's two types of jobs. Those where what you do creates value for people within the company, and those where what you do creates value for people outside the company. You only need a degree for the former.
Rule of thumb: Ask someone what their greatest accomplishment is. If what they say is relative, i.e. "I am better than someone else at ___," then chances are they aren't very good at anything.
Avoid those whose self-worth comes from comparing themselves to others, be it through degrees or GPA or money, etc. They're losers and hanging out with them will keep you from accomplishing anything in life.
The funniest thing is that investment banks hire based on GPA even though there is zero correlation between GPA and alpha, and alpha is 100% of your job performance.
"The funniest thing is that investment banks hire based on GPA even though there is zero correlation between GPA and alpha, and alpha is 100% of your job performance. "
No wonder so many high profile mutual funds can't even beat the index.
a) What's alpha?
b) There are some things where relative accomplishments are OK, like sports. Saying you're an Olympic gold medalist means you're just better than everybody else, but it's still quite an accomplishment.
Each portfolio has an expected return based on risk. The higher the risk, the higher the return has to be to justify the risk. Alpha is the difference between the expected return based on the risk of the portfolio and the actual return. So positive alpha is good, negative alpha is bad. Traders are compensated based on their alpha.
My point about the relative accomplishment thing is just that you can go through your entire life trying to beat other people at stuff, but just because you can beat someone at something doesn't mean you're making the world a better place.
Being an Olympic athlete is certainly an accomplishment, although hopefully one goes on to do stuff that benefits others. And I say that as someone who pulled a 500 meter piece on the rowing machine that was faster than ltwt Olympic standard this afternoon.
Rule of thumb: Ask someone what their greatest accomplishment is. If what they say is relative, i.e. "I am better than someone else at ___," then chances are they aren't very good at anything.
Avoid those whose self-worth comes from comparing themselves to others, be it through degrees or GPA or money, etc. They're losers and hanging out with them will keep you from accomplishing anything in life.
The funniest thing is that investment banks hire based on GPA even though there is zero correlation between GPA and alpha, and alpha is 100% of your job performance.