Creating Intrinsic Value

How To Think About Building a Career

Every career move I’ve made has involved a significant pay cut.

Each time was scary and uncomfortable, but as I’ve waded through the first three years of entrepreneurship, I am now comfortable with the fact that the only thing that matters in a career is creating intrinsic value… In doing hard things and developing skillsets that are fundamentally worthwhile, regardless of when or how they are recognized... In playing to win, rather than obsessing over optionality or playing “not to lose.”

The reason this matters is because this is the way you build a career that is both personally rewarding and financially successful, which is the combination we all ultimately want.

Let me share a bit about how I came to this conclusion in my own journey, in hopes that it will provide some guiding points for yours.

An Unpredictable Path

Wall Street

The beginning of my unlikely career path began on Wall Street - leaving Alabama to go to a new city where I knew very few people and was largely on my own. How I got to New York merits an essay of its own, but it suffices to say that it took a lot of hard work, some luck, and was never part of my “master plan” growing up.

Fortunately, I was able to make it happen and got the dream job as a Wall Street analyst straight out of college. Coming from a very “non-target” school for high finance jobs in New York, I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder and worked hard. I started to do well, began developing a routine despite the crazy work hours, got positive feedback, good bonuses, and was content. I wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.

Birmingham Investment Fund

But, after two years, I got an opportunity to come back home that I couldn’t pass up. I left the New York job that I had worked so hard to get and took a pay cut in pursuit of more valuable experience.

I joined an investment fund in Birmingham where I got to be one of ten people managing over $15 billion in capital. I learned about fundamental business analysis and competitive advantages. I got to flex my generalist skillsets and explore my curiosities. I got to talk to public company CEOs and go to interesting tradeshows - all as a ~25 year old. I loved it - it was another dream job. I was starting to get comfortable and could see a long-term path with meaningful financial and personal upside.

And yet, to my surprise, I ended up leaving again after two years.

The Tech Startup

Once more, an unforeseen opportunity appeared that promised truly unique experience. It was with a local tech startup under a serial entrepreneur, and it offered me the chance to see what it was like to actually build a business.

I had an offer to join as a financial analyst, and I took it. But not without deliberation.

This was the most uncomfortable path I had taken by far. Once again, I took a pay cut and endured significant financial opportunity cost in earnings over the next several years as we built the business. The environment was also very foreign, and therefore a tad uncomfortable, at first. There was much less structure than in the investment world… I started with my desk being a couch and ended working in 7 different offices of various shapes and sizes. It was much more about just figuring things out rather than executing a known process (which I am more suited for). But it ended up being an amazing experience.

To my surprise, I ended up staying for four years. I became CFO halfway through, raised private equity funding, acquired multiple companies, grew significantly, and sold the company.

It had its ups and downs, to be clear. Building a company is not nearly as sexy or blissful as it may seem from the outside looking in. I learned some hard lessons.

But, I have zero regrets. Because this is where I really started to appreciate the importance of building intrinsic value.

The Final Fork in the Road: Security vs. Uncertainty

I knew we would sell the company one day. The final fork in the road, that I anguished about for years, is what I would do after.

At this point, I had built some really valuable experience and had a lot of options. I could become the CFO of another tech company. I could go into public equity investments, private equity, other operating roles, etc. And, truth be told, I was extremely tempted to do so. After selling the company, I got several high-paying opportunities along these lines.

But, despite how uncomfortable it felt, my gut told me to continue on the path of intrinsic value. I didn’t want fear or the desire for security to dictate my life choices.

I decided to start a company.

The Shift in Mindset

After deciding to start a company with my co-founder, Will, my relation to risk and career development really started to change.

This decision meant giving up real optionality… turning down high-paying jobs for no salary, no safety net, no easy off-ramp.

We ended taking $0 in income for over 18 months. And during that period is when my mindset really started to shift.

Because I was doing hard work. I was growing, I was learning about myself, I was developing new and valuable skillsets, I was building resilience.

It was so rewarding, yet I was receiving literally nothing for it. This didn’t bother me, though, because I know it was intrinsically valuable. It was so clear to me that the level of personal and professional growth that was happening would pay off somehow, some way. Maybe in financial terms, maybe not. Maybe soon, maybe later. But I felt convicted it was worthwhile.

The Magic of Compounding and the Secret to Entrepreneurship

I started to think about career building in terms value created vs. value realized.

Early in any new venture, whether in professional or personal life, those lines can be far apart. You’re investing enormous effort and getting relatively little back. Most people quit in that gap, or never enter it in the first place because they are too fearful of enduring the uncertainty.

But if you stay in the game, the gap eventually starts to close. Value compounds and starts to be realized quickly.

This is the secret of entrepreneurship, and of success in most of life’s endeavors: you have to stay in the game long enough to reap the rewards of your efforts.

The one unintuitive point, though, is that you have to ensure that the lines never actually converge… that you always do more than you are paid for.

Until the day I die, I want the value I’ve realized in the world to lag the value I’ve created. Because that means I’ve stayed on the path of growth the whole way through, and it also (hopefully) implies that I’ve added more to the world than I’ve taken.

The Payoff

My company, DevClarity, has started to find real success after three years.

We can pay ourselves and our employees competitive wages. I can now see a world where I make more money with this business than I have in any of my prior roles.

And yet I’ve largely stopped thinking about money.

Not because financial needs have disappeared. But because I have a deep confidence in the intrinsic value of what we’re building… in the fact that this is fundamentally worthwhile, even if it all goes to zero.

I feel a sense of confidence that doesn’t require external validation to sustain itself.

That is the essence of creating intrinsic value. And of a meaningful life.