Consulting is a Fake Job
2025-10-09
I had a super late night last night and slept in until about 1 PM today. I was at trivia with a few friends. We go to this same bar every Wednesday because my friend is old pals with the MC. My friend who set it up for all of us has it set as his main ritual and shows up every Wednesday, almost monastically. His entire network of friends and acquaintances have the opportunity to show up to trivia because he holds it down as the singular constant. It's quite nice of him to do it. But anyways, we played trivia and I had some liquor and beer and ate a burger and almost an entire pizza. After trivia I got into some other shenanigans and didn't get home until about 4:30 in the morning, hence why I woke up so late today. My body is tired, a little hungover, and aching from last night's joyous punishments.
Today has, of course, been a very slow day. I just got out of a relaxing bath, which helped with the aches and pains immensely. I feel like a new man.
A thought that occurred to me while in the bath: I hate 'consultants.' It seems that becoming a consultant is this highly sought-after position. It makes sense because all you get to do is tell other people what to do and take no responsibility for their actions—the perfect non-job. I've heard of what it's like to be a consultant for a big consulting company. They travel a lot, have long hours, build, uh, 'pitch decks' or whatever the fuck they're called. It's a lot of presenting, showboating, and making appearances. I've also heard of what it's like to be an 'independent' consultant. Whether it's the 'fractional CMOs' on LinkedIn or famous bloggers who somehow convinced executives from big gay companies to have 'sparring sessions' with them for hundreds of dollars an hour—it all feels so overwhelmingly fake, dishonest, stupid, and harmful.
It's odd because there are some famous bloggers who I somewhat look up to like Gwern or the ribbonfarm guy because they took the great craft of writing and figured out how to make a living from it in the great Silicon Age. Well, aside from their luck hitting it big as early Bitcoin investors, they were able to show that their writing could bring in big audiences and incite lively discussions through original ideas and opinions.
For me, though, it's a bit of a cautionary tale. I see those guys and on the one hand, I look up to them, but also I see that they built their careers on being professional 'smart guys', people who, like I said, promote work that is fake, dishonest, stupid, and harmful. I would never ever in a thousand million years have some stupid rich person pay me so that I could debate them or whatever. That sounds so extremely ludicrous to me. I'd rather be some kind of sage homeless person who makes no money with their thoughts than some kind of Idea Dragon sitting on a pile of ideas only willing to share them with the highest bidder.
It saddens me that these smart people are so willing to compromise themselves in that kind of way. I hate that kind of weird 'consulting' like I hate podcasts. Why the fuck do people think it's so cool to monetize regular conversations? I would never pay to hear a bunch of jerk-offs just shooting the shit. If I wanted to have a good conversation, I would just call a friend and have it for free. It is an insane world we live in, truly.
I don't write for rich people. I write for people, baby.