The Chomp #056

The New Career Stack, and More...

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best strategic thinking content and top emerging business trends from the internet and beyond.

If you’ve been sent this email and you’re not a subscriber, you can subscribe by clicking on the blue button below. 

With that, let’s dive into it.

---

Deep Dive

The New Career Stack: “The opportunity to support workers who are searching and applying for, currently working, and/or in the process of pivoting to a new career is massive. It is hard to understate the tectonic shifts that are happening in the workforce and that has only been accelerated by COVID.”

Over the past year, I’ve highlighted a handful of essays and articles on how the passion/creator economy will impact the future of work for both American’s and workers across the globe. In starting to explore this area in a bit more depth, my eyes have opened up to opportunities that exist within this space as well as those tangentially related to it.

Despite my excitement about this space, it’s clear to me that most people won't split off from the traditional career path into the passion/creator economy in the short to medium term. While I do believe that an increasing number of people ultimately will, I don’t foresee the disappearance of employer-employee relationships anywhere close to the horizon. That said, people now have more optionality than ever before on how they want to work and what they want to do.

But, increasing optionality doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to figure out what you want to do. Especially in a world that's becoming ever more competitive. More optionality + more competition = difficult career navigation. This, in turn, has created a big opportunity for the emergence of new tools and resources to help people along the way.

These tools and resources make up what Jomayra Herrera has dubbed as the “career stack”. In her most recent essay, Jomayra breaks out the career journey into three different phases: Exploration, Placement, and Application. Accompanying these phases are three enablers for mobility: Learning, Professional Identity, and Community. At different parts of one’s career journey, different tools are necessary. Somebody exploring a career path is at a much different place than someone further along in their journey seeking upward mobility.

Throughout Jomayra’s essay, she identifies current tools that exist in each category as well as white spaces and opportunities for new tools to be created. It’s an interesting, and valuable, exploration that highlights how large the market for career support and advancement really is. It’s exciting to see the innovation already underway as well as to prognosticate on what’s to come.

At Bloomberg Beta, we’re excited about opportunities in each of these categories and have invested in a handful of companies across them to date. A few examples include Free Agency in placement, MasterClass in learning, and The Cru in community.

Tying this all back to the passion/creator economy, tools within the career stack centered on that segment are some of those that I’m most enthusiastic about. Tools like Teachable and Stir Money are empowering creators to monetize and manage their earnings in entirely new ways. While it might be harder than ever for someone to navigate their career journey, it’s never been easier to test the waters of being a creator.

I plan to spend more time digging into this space over the coming months and am excited for what’s to come within it. If you’re working on anything related to the passion/creator space, or know folks working on something interesting, please reach out!

---

Chum Bucket

• Xbox: The Oral History of an American Video Game Empire (Bloomberg)

• Where Should We Begin? (Roy Bahat)

• The Creator Economy Needs a Middle Class (HBR)

• Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes (NYT)

• What Japan’s Wild Snow Monkeys Can Teach Us About Animal Culture (Smithsonian Mag)

---

Tweet of the Week

Alex Danco @Alex_Danco

Trying to buy some Affirm shares, but apparently I have to pay for them right now??? What am I missing here

Song of the Week

Apple Music Link

---

Books

Currently Reading

Recently Read

• I first learned about Mike Duncan when I came across his podcast, The History of Rome. After listening to the first episode, I was awed by his unique storytelling ability. Through a combination of wit and dry humor, Duncan makes history straight-up fun. When I learned that he followed up his podcast series with this book, I knew I had to read it. My love of Roman history might make me a bit biased, but I thought this book was a blast. It’s also incredibly timely. Despite focusing on the events of two millennia ago, The Storm Before the Storm unveils a host of parallels with our contemporary world. Any fans of history will have trouble putting this book down. (4/5)

Parting Thoughts

This Week in History

• On January 12, 1970, The Boeing 747 made its maiden flight. Considered the original “jumbo jet”, the 747 was the first airliner to use the twin-aisle concept as well as the first to use high bypass turbofan engines. (Source)

“We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology.”

— Rory Sutherland

If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.

-CM

This newsletter is created and authored by Cody McCauley and is published and provided for informational purposes only. The information in the newsletter solely constitutes Cody’s own opinions. None of the information contained in the newsletter constitutes—or should be construed as—investment advice.