Employee 1: Yahoo

You can generalize this. Isolate the idea that the organization was built on, then see what happened to it. Usually, you'll see that the 'killer app' that gave them the ability to rise to the top created a new world in which everyone has that ability to exercise it. If you don't come up with a new one, you'll eventually lose your privileged position.

There's nothing wrong with this at all. We just are wired to want success so we go looking for personal failures rather than thinking bigger.

From my experience managing managers in big corporations, a lot of the bullshit is created by people who want their own way after a decision has been made. They tend to be the reason meetings are called in the first place, since someone has to make the effort to get everyone moving in the same direction. They are also the most likely to walk around calling bullshit on everything that's happening in the place.

There's no need to denigrate the work of the people who spend more of their time than they'd like in meetings trying to get a big company of individuals to cooperate on goals that are set by executives.

As an aside, there are people who enjoy the kind of work that doesn't necessarily provide instant feedback. Teachers come to mind. Sure, there are little victories and defeats every day, but at the end of the year, there are times when they sigh and wonder what good it did. Try going to a good teacher's retirement party or funeral sometime and mingle with those who come to pay their respects. You'll often hear things like, "He changed my life" or "I'd probably be in prison now if she hadn't been so patient with me." Similarly, the people who make big organizations actually work have an impact on many lives and on the direction of companies, the effects of which are not always visible for years or decades.

Why else would they exist?

I have not been able to find meaningful/purposeful work in any organization. The life lessons I've learned can basically be summarized as: there is no such thing as purposeful work for which you are paid a wage, and businesses rarely extract meaningful labor out of you. Businesses are rarely punished for being unproductive, and most effort within any organization is spent intensely focused on politics, both internal and external, to ensure the business can create Dutch books and survive any possible outcome without needing to actually be productive.

The closer you get to pure knowledge work, the worse all of these effects become. In my field, machine learning and statistics, it is about as bad as it can possibly be. Because policy is ostensibly supposed to be based on evidence and sound, statistical reasoning, and it's very fashionable right now to try to characterize all aspects of business planning as if they are "data driven", all that it means is that the corporate politicians now hawkishly focus on statistics/machine learning and "science" as the means by which they control politics.

It unequivocally does not mean that businesses are actually shifting to truly be more scientific in their decision making, nor are they less wasteful, less driven by prestige or politics, less hyper-focused on short-term thinking, etc. If anything, firms are worse on all of these dimensions, and waste vast sums of money setting up big data infrastructure than truly does nothing but give glossy data visualization facades that decisions are somehow being made based on hard data.

What it has taught me is somewhat of the inverse of what you say.

I agree that pursuit of material wealth and power is uninteresting and highly unfulfilling. The problem is that pursuit of meaningful work turns out to be even more uninteresting and even more unfulfilling and you simply end up poorer and sounding like a burnt out crank.

You are probably better off (if you can; I unfortunately cannot) sublimating away any desire for creative, autonomous, meaningful, purposeful, or interesting work -- simply delete that from your genome with hardcore unhealthy repression. Then try to amass enough wealth doing horrible, horrible politics as you can to retire early, start your own small business, or something else where you are personally in charge of what you do and where you don't have a need for anyone else to pay you for your labor output.

The one part I will agree with you on is to definitely value relationships. Whether you are burning yourself out chasing the carrot of so-called meaningful work, or you are killing yourself slowly playing political games to get promotions and money, do not allow either toxin to infiltrate your personal life, and really try to slow your brain down and savor the moments you have with family, friends, and loved ones.

And how big does your fuck you fund and/or financial stability in general have to be to be able to say No to uninteresting unpurposeful work?

And how much do you need to both pay for travel and to be able to afford the time to travel?

Wealth accumulation is freedom accumulation. You need the freedom to lead a purposeful rewarding life. You can't do that, if your days are consumed by struggling to make ends meet.

A lot of modern inspiremotivationstuff neglects that part.

Would your thirties be as fulfilling as they are if you hadn't spent your twenties in pursuit of wealth? I'd guess not.

As someone a hair's breath away from 40 I can tell you it is if you don't have it. I see my body starting to creak and groan, witness Silicon Valley's blatant ageism, take an honest look at my ability to continue to earn into my 60s, take a frightened peek at my wholly inadequate retirement account, and find myself wishing I did more of that "pursuit of wealth" and less "travel and purpose" earlier on in my life.

I'll be happy to do "enlightenment and purpose" when I'm confident that I won't have to choose between dog food and back medicine when I inevitably get old.

I am not that old, that I remember Java before it was mostly abandoned by Oracle.