It’s really surreal to me. My dad would have never paid for me to take videogame lessons.
Logan Werner –18 y/o Millionaire Gamer
There are lots of new ways to work and have a career. You can be a millionaire gamer like the person above. There’s big money in esports. “Forty million players attempted to qualify over 10 weeks of online (Fortnite World Cup) competition but only 100 solo finalists have a shot at winning the $3m (£2.4m) prize.”[i]
You can make a living, albeit minimal playing professional basketball – as a basketball gamer. Minimum salary of gamers in the NBA’s inaugural sports season is $32,000 base salary plus any prize money they win. They get health insurance, free housing, and retirement plan.[ii] Hey, it’s work! Or, you can take a predictable path with the following hot tech skills (all pre COVID):
- Data scientist median base salary – $130,000
- Site reliability engineer – $200,000
- Enterprise account executive – $182,000
- Product designer – $122,000
- Product owner – $101,000
- Customer success manager – $89,000
- Engagement manager – $130,000
- Solutions architect – $139,000
- IT lead – $121,000
- Scrum master – $103,000[iii]
Work Lesson Earned: Many factors that impact your work are outside of your control such as globalization, mergers, acquisitions, and outsourcing. But, we all need to understand the changing work marketplaces and how they may impact your career.
Bottom line: You need to be self-aware, have self-knowledge, and be able to self manage. We live in a ‘what’s in it for me’ work environment where VUCANs look out for themselves. You own your future. The common refrain throughout this book is take control of your Future of Work. Why? No one else will. A few years ago, Korn Ferry, the human resource management firm, conducted a survey of 67 managerial skills: ‘developing others’ came in dead last.[iv]
[i] ‘Fortnite World Cup’, BBC News, July 26, 2019.
[ii] ‘Clocking In’, MIT Technology Review, April 20, 2018.
[iii] ‘LinkedIn Most Promising Tech Jobs in 2019’, LinkedIn, January 10, 2019.
[iv] ‘When Did You Know’, Gloria Feldt, February 2, 2018.