"German engineering is the number one in the world!"

An engineer slams the door and came to me, furious he was passed over for promotion.

He said his solutions were the most elegant. The most efficient.

He solved our biggest scaling problem with 100 lines of code.

I dont think he understands.

That's precisely why he'll never be a director.

He thinks corporate rewards people for solving problems. Corporate reward people for creating dependencies.

His 100-line solution is brilliant, simple, and easily maintained.

It also makes him completely and utterly redundant.

I'm a humble founder of a startup worth $1B.

My legal department has a budget of $10 million a month.

You see me overspending on my defense and you think im crazy.

I dont think you understand.

This isn't my legal budget. It's my marketing and R&D budget combined.

We don't launch lawsuits to win in court. We launch them to win the market.

How??

I successfully made a man whose penis fall off as soon as he finished having sex.

Or at least, I made a plant equivalent of it.

You see, the mad scientist I hired has create a seed where as soon as its done growing, no seeds will spawn out of it.

I sold them at the market for very cheap. our customers love it.

I dont think they understand.

My competitors love to talk about their "grind culture."

They boast about their golden handcuffs and 90-hour work weeks.

They think squeezing their talent is a sign of strength.

They see their employees as costs to be managed. I see them as assets that can walk away.

They trap a 20-year veteran with a complex equity plan he can't liquidate.

They save a few million on his comp and think they're geniuses.

Then one day, the one who actually originates the deals, gets a call. He realizes his cage is made of paper.

He walks.

A big man plays a game with me. Every day.

He holds out two hands.

One hand has a shiny silver coin. The other has green paper money.

He says, "Pick one."

I always take the shiny coin.

"See? He's so stupid," he says.

The big man laughs. His friends laugh too.