The one thing no CEO will ever understand

“You keep telling everyone you’re just a writer,” the CEO said. “I think you’re holding yourself back.” 

It was supposed to be a compliment. He noticed how I operated inside the company—that people listened to me. I did a lot to improve morale, and generally tried to leave things better than I found them. The CEO sincerely believed I could become more. What he didn’t imagine—what no executive could ever imagine—is that I didn’t want to. 

I was depressed for weeks after this conversation, though I didn’t understand why. Years later, with a bit of reflection, I think it was the word “just”. He thought I could be more than “just” a writer, if I tried. There’s an assumption there—that being a leader is the ideal state for any person. That everyone, if they had the opportunity, would leap at the chance. 

It’s not true. Think back to elementary school, when you were asked what you wanted to be when you grew up. Did anyone you know tell the adults they wanted to be a VP of Marketing? No—kids dream of doing something useful. They want to be firemen, or artists, or scientists. 

It might sound like I’m demeaning the executive class, and I am. I think, on some level, that they agree—they’re not cool and they know it. They’re rich, and that should be enough, but they also want to be admired. Elon Musk is transparently desperate to be seen as a tech guy, not a business guy, for this reason, and launched an entire encyclopedia over it. That’s the extreme, obviously, but every leader in tech presents themselves as something other than a business guy. But that’s what they are: business guys. All the hoodies in the world can’t hide that they’re suits.

I’ve been a freelancer for a few years, which means I spend a lot of my time sending invoices. But I, as a normal person, see this as the thing that enables my writing. I send out my silly PDFs, and track them on a dumb spreadsheet, not because I’m passionate about finance—it’s just a part of the job that needs to get done. To paraphrase an unconfirmed Walt Disney quote, I don’t write to make money—I make money so that I can write.

This, I believe, is how society should be structured. Making things is what deserves respect—everything else is just administration. But right now the bulk of the money, and most of the political power, goes to freaks who think the spreadsheets are the point. They’re wrong. 

It’s cliché to complain about capitalism, granted. But I can’t help but wonder: is this really the system? Forever? One where every pursuit is judged by its ability to generate revenue? Where all the credit, and most of the money, goes to investors and administrators, instead of the people who actually do things? Or could we structure society differently, if we wanted to? 

In other words: could we build a world where no one is “just” a firefighter, “just” a teacher, or “just” a writer? I think we can, and should. We can start by showing more respect to the people who actually do things (and a lot less respect to CEOs).