Smart People Are Going Into Law and Finance

May 11, 2020 engineering corporations [engineering]

I recently read on Hacker News that Elon Musk has stated “Too many smart people go into finance and law”. His main focus was that people prefer to use their talents for financial engineering instead of putting in “an honest day’s living”.

I work as an engineer in a manufacturing company and I’ll say companies in no way value people that put in “an honest day’s living”. Corporations view engineers and manufacturing folks as expenses and try their best to eliminate us. They’ll outsource work to cheaper countries, find ways to automate work, and even engage in collusion to limit wage growth.

Given all that corporations do to eliminate workers, if a person finds success performing financial engineering or suing corporations over dubious claims then I think they should go for it.