1% Smarter Newsletter No. 15: The Brontosaurus Tail
What I'm reading, listening to, and learning from the week ending 3/20/22
I’ve slid down the tail of the brontosaurus.
The unusual metaphor comes from Carter Cast, a professor I knew in business school. His career spanned roles at large companies like PepsiCo and Electronic Arts; intra- and entrepreneurial forays at Walmart.com and then-startup Blue Nile; and venture capital investing. As a professor, he has adopted the arresting framework of a “brontosaurus’s tail” when advising students on their career choices. Brand-new startups with little more than an idea and a pitch deck exist at the far end of the tail, whereas mature, stable companies exist along the flat of the dinosaur’s back.
If I’ve lost you already, this visual should help.
So when I say “I’ve slid down the tail,” I mean that my career path started at the mature end of the curve but has moved towards the earlier stage. Getting here has been a process of self-discovery and growth.
My first job out of college was at a premier economic and financial consulting firm. It was one of the least risky places I could start my career. The company was as old as I was and had slowly but steadily grown to a staff of about 500. It had a proven business model, a deep roster of clients, and a steady pipeline of billable projects. The company was as de-risked as one could imagine. The path ahead of me was clear and well-trodden: analyst, senior analyst, research associate, then business school. Stage: Mature.
However, subsequent roles led me further down the tail. I joined a well-capitalized fintech company that was growing like gangbusters and seeking new markets to expand into. The experience was jolting and exciting, yet uncomfortable at first. I had only ever known the stability of a mature professional services company, so the adjustment challenged me. Stage: Growth. I then transitioned to another fintech that had found product-market fit but was still seeking the right channel mix and product strategy to massively scale. I liked playing a role in building the business—it required more creativity, initiative, strategy, and execution than I’d ever had before. Stage: Scale.
Today, as I’ve referenced in previous newsletters, I am thrilled to be at the startup Ness. For the first time, I’m involved in creating the product from scratch, not building on top of a foundation that others before me have laid. I’m doing much more networking than ever before with advisors, investors, and helpful folks in the fintech community. And execution has never been more paramount. Stage: Startup.
So where to next? Eventually, I plan to slide all the way down the tail to its very end. I have visions of founding a business that solves a problem at the intersection of consumer finance and technology. I don’t expect to be ready for that for a number of years. At every phase of my career, however, the previous phase was essential for the current one. As I’ve explained in an earlier post,
[In consulting] I learned not only hard skills like Excel modeling and financial arcana, but also things like juggling competing deadlines, managing up, and developing a high standard for the quality of my work. My next two roles introduced me to the fast-evolving fintech consumer lending space, where I honed my credit risk and analytics knowledge as well as my ability to navigate a startup (dis)organization. I developed techniques to manage direct reports and work cross-functionally, to secure stakeholder buy-in and establish rapport and credibility.
Each of those experiences was essential for me to excel in the next one. And the same will be true of my current chapter.
At decision points throughout my career, I will come back to the brontosaurus metaphor and ask myself: given my skills, interests, risk tolerance, and non-work responsibilities, where on the brontosaurus’s tail do I want to be?
💡 Featured Content
My top pick this week
📄 Find the Right Job Using This “Dinosaur” Diagnostic by Carter Cast
🖥 Web3
🎧 Alex Danco — What is Web 3.0 All About? by Jim O'Shaughnessy
🧪 Tech
🎧 The Science of Keeping the Brain Healthy by Lifespan with Dr. David Sinclair
💰 Money & Investing
📄 Nickel Blowup Made a Lot of Trouble by Matt Levine
🏛 Government and Policy
🎧 The Russian War in Ukraine by Sam Harris
🧠 Learning & Development
📄 Ten Things Getting in the Way of Your Execution by Deb Liu
📄 Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday
📄 The Midlife Unraveling by Brené Brown