Career Notes #2: Attach Yourself to Strategy - 12 January 2024

Revenue is the top priority at most companies.  If it is not the top priority at your company, wait until corporate revenue starts to fall and then check again.  Based on this deep insight (hah!), I recommeded yesterday that one of the best ways to insulate your career from a layoff is to "attach yourself to revenue".  I do not mean to suggest that the Engineering Department should transfer en masse to the Sales team, but that each engineer should be sure that their work is related to revenue-generation that is key to the corporation.  While this remains the most important advice, it sometimes happens that positions connected to revenue enhancement are not available.  For example, maybe you find yourself in the Research department.  Or maybe you do not want to spend a lot of time in the maintenance and support departments (assuming you are working on important products).  Since Research is connected to future revenue, and often speculative at that, it can be risky to work in Research.  You can still increase your odds of surviving a layoff if you attach yourself to strategy.

You will need to study and analyze to understand the corporate strategy.  This is good advice in general, but I am encouraging you to leverage what you know and learn.  For example, I worked at a chip company at a time in which "virtual reality" was the stated goal, the stated strategy of the corporation.  Those familiar with the timeframe around 2019 will recognize instantly that "virtual reality" fizzled.  A bunch of people working on virtual reality features and products were laid off.  This does not contradict my advice because "virtual reality" was never really the corporate strategy.  Press releases and CEO speeches would proclaim "virtual reality" as a major focus of investment.  Press analysts sucked it up and proclaimed it to be "the year of virtual reality".  Serious people would nod when others predicted that virtual reality would generate billions of dollars in sales in the coming years.  But "virtual reality" was a tactic, and a half-hearted tactic at that.  When "virtual reality" collapsed, bitcoin was the Next Big Thing.  A similar story can be written about generic bitcoin and blockchain technology.  The bubble may have been a bit bigger, but bitcoin mining crashed quickly.  It is still struggling to survive as I write this, but the obituary is written and the casket has been built.

The technologies of "virtual reality" and "bitcoin" were never strategic to anyone (outside the huckster-con community).  While people were distracted with them, server computers were growing as substantial strategic thrusts.  Further, although the details are still playing out, artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI appear to be rising as valid strategic thrusts.  The difference is that AI actually accomplishes tasks and makes work more efficient.  There are plenty of problems yet to solve (hallucinations, for example), but solid progress has been demonstrated.  Servers were clearly a strategy as smartphones exploded in popularity.  Phone and internet companies (e.g., Verizon, Google) needed one server per 100 smartphones.  As time went on and smartphones continued to grow in capability, that dropped (grew?) to one server per 10 smartphones.  That kind of substance and growth is a sign of strategy at work.  I choose high-tech examples because of my work experience; you need to choose examples that come from  your profession.  

Having identified key strategies, to reduce risks, you should seek out positions that support those strategies.  Become a key contributor (creator or manager) of a component of those strategies.  The strategy will become a revenue source and you will continue to be well positioned having attached yourself to revenue, but youcan start with attaching yourself to strategy.