What if... stay with me here... we married standards with effectiveness?

A brief thread... (1/n)

Hair standards for women have been awful. Just ask @gilltheamazon or @evo_kositz or @Accidental_E9 or like any woman in uniform. (/2)
But women’s hair isn’t the only generally arbitrary appearance standards.

A worthwhile natural experiment can be tattoo standards. (/3)
In the short time I’ve been in service, tattoo were:
-not allowed if exposed in Class B
-universally waived to include neck and hand tattoos
-allowed but photographed (all not just gang/racially suspect)
-acceptable for enlistees but not officer candidates (/4)
Did the Army’s effectiveness drop when tattoo standards were relaxed?
Did we become more effective when they were tightened?

The easy answer is no. Arbitrary standards are, wait for it, arbitrary.
(/5)
The silliest example I saw? A high performing paralegal NCO had to delay her start at WOCS so she could get a quarter inch star tattoo laser-removed from behind her ear.

This begs the question, what impact did that have on the Army’s mission or her performance? (/6)
But there are standards for a reason, so where there are standards, let’s articulate the reason.

So like beards. While this famous Norwegian officer can rock a beard (and ponytail), there is an articulated reason as to why American Soldiers cannot sport a beard (/7)

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".
1/ Some initial thoughts on personal moats:

Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.

Characteristics of a personal moat below:


2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.

As Andrew Chen noted:


3/ You don’t want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized

Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than


4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself — required an in-person artist.

After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.

5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.

In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.

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