Rand Rover: Ass

[Rand_Rover]

@Richard_Parker

Anyone who ends up as a corporate tax lawyer could have “made better life choices” as defined in Rand’s worldview. If Rand is something like a fourth-year associate who gets his yearly bonus at a firm paying market rates, he pulls in around $100/hr. before taxes. Most of his clients, on the other hand, rake in many many times that amount. Some of them are probably younger than Rand. Many 27-year-old I-bankers are still making more than that in this economy. Being a corporate lawyer is not a path to unfathomable riches. Even if he becomes a partner some day, he’s making at best around a million a year. People who are a decade into running a successful business can make twice what he makes in half the time with all the same intellectual challenges.

So it would be silly to conclude that Rand couldn’t have made “better life choices” as he defines it–which I’m pretty sure even he would concede.

My question would be why he decided to be a tax lawyer and not a billionaire software magnate, or even a millionaire small business owner.

1. Partners at my firm make well over $2 M per year on average.

2. I’m not that entrepeneurial. I’d rather advise people on deals than take the risk myself. I’m also more analytical and less practical. Therefore, I’m more suited to being a lawyer.

3. Business people can make more money but they can also go broke. It’s hard for a lawyer to go broke (if I get fired here I can work elsewhere). I’d rather make a steady decent living than risk going broke for the chance of getting filthy rich. Therefore, for me, the spread of possible outcomes is much better as a lawyer than a banker or business owner.

4. This in absolutely no way conflicts with my worldview that people are responsible for their choices. I acknowledge that it’s possible I could be richer if I had made different choices but that’s not a chance I was willing to take.