The author wants intelligent graduates to avoid jobs in finance and consultant

“It is an extraordinary waste of talent.” This is what Rutger Bregman has to say about intelligent graduates of the best universities who embark on careers in consultation and funding.

“In a rational society, you would expect if you are going to a job fair in these elite institutions where the best and the brightest go, you would have a position to prevent the next pandemic, a stand to heal malaria once and for all, and a position on the abolition of extreme poverty,” he told Business Insider.

“But instead, what we have is Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Kirkland & Ellis. What’s going on here?”

Bregman, a historian from the Netherlands, is the author of “Moral Ambition: Stop wasting your talent and start making a difference”. In the new book, he maintains that too many people enter “socially useless” professions and believe that their chosen career is useless.

Many make it even before making their decision, but I don’t know what else to do, he said.

“Most of them are very well intentioned and deeply care about the state of the world. They want to do better, but in one way or another, they are sucked in this tangle of talent of the Bermuda.”

Many graduates are lost spiritually

The previous books of Bregman, “Humanity” in 2020 and “Utopia for Realists” published three years earlier, were both New York Times bestsellers. His works have sold more than 2 million copies.

Throughout the Bregman career, he spoke and wrote about how the jobs most prejudicial to society – big tobacco, for example – tend to be best paid. Not all consultants and bankers necessarily fall into this category, he said, but having so much is a problem.

“It’s not all destructive or something like that,” he said. “But in relation to what these people could do, if they are reporting to some of the greatest challenges, the opportunity costs are massive.”

Some people are “just a little superficial and boring” and “deeply care to have many cars or have a large house or have the local office,” said Bregman. “You probably can’t help these people.”

But for many, money is not the most important objective to choose the path of council and finance. A huge motivation is to “preserve your optionality,” said Bregman, because “many of these people are simply terrified by the future”.

“Many of these children are spiritually a little lost,” said Bregman. “They don’t really know what to do with their lives. McKinsey is very good to exploit this.”

He said that large companies offer them a continuation of what they already did, which is the “next logical step”.

“They went from the best primary school in the best high school, then always did the university specialization lessons, obtaining the best grades,” said Bregman. “It is a way of postponing the real decisions, the postponement of becoming an adult, and it is very attractive if you are an insecurity that has no idea what is the devil in your life.”

Champions League for benefactors

Working in finance can also be intellectually difficult, which attracts people who like to solve puzzles. Bregman said there should be more options in morally ambitious areas.

“Many of these children, they just want to play in the Champions League,” he said, referring to the European high-level football competition. “What I think we have to do is create the Champions League and the Olympic Games for beneficent.”

Certain options for morally ambitious people include seizure of large -scale research and innovation areas and focus on resolving some of the biggest problems in humanity, such as hunger and the climate crisis. Bregman said that it was not a question of following your passion, but of determining “where your impact can be the greatest”.

“The right way depends on the challenge you take up. Some problems require advanced research and innovations, others require activism, lobbying or daring entrepreneurship,” he said. “Whether you are working to end hunger, fight against climate collapse, reduce industrial agriculture or stop tax evasion by the superrich – what matters is that you go where you need it.”

Bregman hopes to inspire people who feel glued to get out of movements with school for moral ambition, which he co -founded.

“We want to help as many people as possible to devote their career in their lives to some of the most urgent problems that we face as a species,” said Bregman.

“When you study these moral pioneers from the past, it’s not that they were good people and then started doing good things,” he added. “It’s the opposite, really. They started to do good things often because they were asked, then they became good people, which is a very important difference.”

Bregman compares him to Gandalf striking at the door of Frodon in “The Lord of the Rings”. Frodon was not passionate about making a long trip and risking his life, said Bregman. But Gandalf’s prospect changed it as a person.

“Frodon was really passionate about gardening and really relaxed life full of second breakfasts,” he said. “But when the old wise wizard explained everything, he was like, yes, it’s probably quite important.”

Bregman jokingly advises those who feel like wanting to do something more to start their own “cult”.

“If you want to be a really ambitious idealist, it’s quite difficult these days because you often swim in a sea of ​​cynicism,” said Bregman. “What you need is to surround yourself with other ambitious idealists, because then you will be like, hey, I am not alone.”

The ambition, he said, is energy, and what really matters is “how it is used and how it is channeled”.

“Do you find an old wise sorcerer, a Gandalf who has a very good idea of ​​what you should do with your life,” said Bregman. “Then listen and do it.”