Apprenticing under someone powerful and knowledgeable has long been a fast track to success.* LBJ learned how to exercise legislative power under legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Bob Iger learned the ropes of entertainment programming under Roone Arledge. Sheryl Sandberg worked under Larry Summers at the World Bank and Treasury. Warren Buffett studied with, then worked for, the father of value investing Benjamin Graham. As AI gobbles up more of the knowledge economy (e.g. David Solomon saying AI can already draft 95% of an S1 in only a few minutes), this apprenticeship edge will only increase.
If general knowledge and effort are becoming commoditized. Taste, relationships, and secret knowledge are becoming more valuable. Most people who aspire to be successful start their career without any of those things. The path to accessing them has often been mediated by enduring ‘the grind’, both as a training ground and a selection mechanism.
The grind is the years of grunt work - long hours, menial tasks, and little praise - that is the hallmark of many competitive fields. Finance, consulting, fashion, media, entertainment, politics - these all have some version of ‘the grind’.
But the tasks that make up the grind are largely things that AI excels at. Data analysis, slide formatting, copyediting - things that can be done endlessly to build up pattern recognition, attention to detail, and fluency in the language of the field - all of these will soon be done more accurately and more tirelessly by AI (100 hour weeks for an investment banking analyst? Child’s play - try a system that works 168 hours every week and doesn’t leave after two years to go to private equity!).
The grind serves another purpose: to separate the incapable/unmotivated from the capable/motivated. This selection function will continue to be important, but firms will need to innovate.
The grind is on its way out and the apprenticeship will take its place. Many high achievers know this intuitively already - the Chief of Staff role in tech has grown in popularity in recent years, in part because of mimetic competition between CEOs (“they have a Chief of Staff, so I must have a Chief of Staff if I’m equally important”), but in part because these roles provide an unmatched launching pad for those who know how to use them.
A good apprenticeship has a few defining characteristics. First, it must provide access. Spending time seated beside the principal is vital for the apprentice to gain enough trust to be granted access to the secrets that the principal holds. Therefore, it must be in-person (unless the principal is in the top .01% of skill at managing a remote organization, which is a secret worth gaining access to in itself).
Second, it must progress. Starting out with menial tasks is fine, good even. Understanding how to correctly place and deliver a lunch order can set the stage for much higher stakes tasks, but as the apprentice proves themselves, the principal must give them progressively more complicated and difficult tasks.
Finally, it must end. This is perhaps the most difficult, as a highly-competent apprentice is an incredibly valuable asset that the principal will be loath to give up. However, for the apprentice to have gotten the maximum value out of the experience, they must either proactively take a role where they have real agency (as a fellow principal or a trusted lieutenant tasked with a much larger portfolio within the orbit of their principal), or be set up with a similar role by the principal.
One thing to call out: the value exchange here will likely seem negative on both sides for the beginning of the relationship - as long as a few months. The principal has to spend significant time training the apprentice, time that would have higher immediate ROI elsewhere. The apprentice must willingly take on tasks beneath their skill level. This is a long term game and both must be excited to play it as such.
Because there are relatively few principals with real taste, relationships, and secret knowledge, that means there are relatively few apprenticeships worth taking. So if you’re a young person not yet ready to become a principal yourself, find an apprenticeship and excel at it. Choosing the right principal and convincing them that you’re worth taking on as an apprentice is the first test to see if you have the taste and relationships you need to access secret knowledge.
*The real fast-track to success is to start something of your own and make it successful. If you can do that, obviously you should. The rest of this essay is for people who aren’t ready to do that yet, for reasons of confidence, ability, or circumstance.