Paul Adams – When we went to the Apple Store on Oxford Street to have our broken Apple iMac’s display cable replaced, we realized a very important fact. We assumed that because of the brand’s size, the employees inside were also highly skilled, but the opposite was true. When we went with an appointment, we sat down and talked with the person introduced as an operator and told him we wanted a replacement display cable for this PC. The person introduced as a “technician” asked, “What is a display cable? Don’t you know what it is?” He replied, “No.” We then asked, “How are you an Apple expert? Given that they’ve put an Apple expert here and are paying you a salary, shouldn’t you at least know that the display cable connects the motherboard and the screen in a PC?” His response was: “Go to a specialized repair shop; they can help you. We can’t.”
The conclusion we drew from this incident is: We assume that all employees at many established companies are highly skilled, but in reality, the vast majority are clueless about the world. They only gain prestige because of the size of the brand, but in reality, they have no talent or value. We think they are all-knowing people, but they don’t know any more than we do. Within large companies, there are a few people who produce value and knowledge; the majority just do menial tasks and make money from the knowledge produced by these 4-5 people.
It’s not just Apple. Google, Samsung, and others… it’s the same everywhere. More importantly, there’s always someone behind anyone who comes to power in a company or country. A relative, a party, a leader, an ideology. Nobody gets there through their own special talents.
Most CVs are actually filled with untrue information. Just like social media profile information. You can write a lot of untrue information on your CV, and nobody will ask why.
Conclusion: The number of people producing knowledge in the world is small. The number of people who get paid thanks to these people is large. That’s why Facebook and Instagram have laid off 8,000 people, because artificial intelligence can do the work of those 8,000 people.