THE CORPORATE LADDER IS DYING

If you like it or not the corporate ladder is dying and this is what some of the smartest, most ambitious people are doing about it. I started my career off in banking. I'm now a tech founder, and I'm at Columbia Business School. Some of the smartest, most ambitious people who are also navigating the job market, but with insane amount of resources. The corporate ladder is dying for two reasons. One, obviously AI. AI cuts out a lot of those entry and middle level roles, so needs far fewer people to do the work. Because of AI, the roles and skills needed for those roles are changing rapidly, that traditional careers just can't keep up. What do you do? A lot of people are talking about a portfolio career, a non-linear career pathway. A portfolio career is when you have multiple income streams that outearn your 9 to 5. The main problem that I see with this is that if you don't have a traditional 9 to 5, if you're in banking, consulting, a high demand startup, or really a lot of corporate roles, a 9 to 5 doesn't exist for you. So trying to build something from your 5 to 9 is difficult. The corporate ladder necessarily doesn't mean that you'll be out of a job tomorrow. It just means that the step-by-step progression doesn't really exist anymore. And you need to figure out what the next option is, take a different number of different pathways, instead of just up in the same company. The genuine thing that you need to do to figure this out is decide if you're staying in a job or making a move because it's actually good for you and your industry set, because you're not just pushing forward because you're anxious and you don't know what to do next. The key here is to acquiring and lean into things that build on your unique skill set, what you're actually good at. Really the salt to this is to not afraid of carved picking another role, a bit another industry, a better life you want, instead of not push forward. Push forward.