Sometimes I have the dubious honor of speaking in front of students of elite business schools. When I ask them about their career prospects, most answer that, in the medium term, they see themselves on the boards of global companies. Years ago, both my fellow students and I gave the same answer. The way I see it, my role is to give students a base-rate crash course: “With a degree from this school, your chance of landing a spot on the board of a Fortune 500 company is less than 0.1 percent. No matter how smart and ambitious you are, the most likely scenario is that you will end up in middle
...more
