> COVID-19 vaccination was estimated to prevent approximately 27 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI], 22 million to 34 million) infections, 1.6 million (95% UI, 1.4 million to 1.8 million) hospitalizations, and 235 000 (95% UI, 175 000–305 000) deaths in the US from December 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021, among vaccinated adults 18 years or older.
Substantial improvement, although some may debate it compared with economic and social costs.
McKinsey’s biggest structural issue is extremely decentralized leadership. Senior partners are not accountable to anyone and there’s limited ethics oversight.
Combine that with working with a majority of F500s and governments, and it’s a high risk situation.
Great initial job training though, so no limit to talent pipeline when they get college grads for 2 years.
Since you’re asking for personal experience - I’m just happier and a better person with mindfulness. I’ve been doing it for 20 years and it’s changed my life for the better.
It seems you might think it’s woo-woo / hand-wavey, which isn’t uncommon in the west.
It’s also not for everyone. my partner has severe anxiety and has never been able to successfully get into meditation. She’s found some success with Metta (loving kindness) but can’t sit in a breathing meditation. That’s okay, it’s something I would never pressure her on. People are just different.
For me, without meditation, my emotions and thoughts get out of control, like an animal’s. I jump to 10 things a minute. I get lost in thought and don’t even realize it. I have no emotional regulation if I feel anger or sadness, it’s like sadness just happens to me. I find it to be a very weird, out of control, and animalistic feeling.
For my personal experience, meditation at its lowest description is like exercise for the mind, and at its highest description is a consistent way of accessing a higher state of being.
Exercise - you’re working your muscles on a regular basis by walking, but without focus you make little progress. For me, if I don’t meditate regularly I find I lose control of my mind 5-10 times a minute. That means I can lose focus, am less happy, and have weak emotional regulation - it’s only when I don’t meditate or sleep that it’s even possible I’d be angry at someone or (horrible thought) consider yelling at my kids. If I’m mindful that kind of emotional reactivity is just not possible. Had a shitty father so that one is important to me.
State of being - meditation can consistently offer the insights psychedelics give you a glimpse into, but on a sustained basis and in a more true form. Many people in the west get into meditation by way of psychedelics and a desire to understand their state of being. It can be as elevated as the annoying diatribe of a college freshman who just did shrooms for the first time, but reliable, consistent, and more true.
Until meditation, I didn’t even realize emotions are physical embodiments (heart racing, shallow breath, pinched shoulders, etc) and last no more than 60 seconds. It’s my rumination and thought that creates moods, which can last for hours or even days. Mindfulness is a helpful way to ensure an emotions is felt fully but doesn’t last more than a minute, so you don’t make bad decisions.
There are many benefits of meditation, ranging from the corporate co-opting of it as “stress relief” to the Buddhist idea that “the mind is everything. What you think you become.”
It is very hard to describe without doing it, just like a runner’s high doesn’t make sense if all one does is walk. These are a few personal experiences that I hope are helpful.
Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” app is a great place to start. Do the trial for 30 days. He’s brilliant and the best entry point I’ve found for westerners who think meditation is too woo-woo.
Waking Up is what came to mind for me as well when I read the OP.
I also had the same questions as OP before I started. Even on HN, when meditation would come up, people would mention the spiritual/eastern roots (often to the tune of "ugh westerners suck they don't even get it") which was always a let down to me: if mindfulness is useful by itself, then surely it doesn't need to be encumbered with or require buy-in to all this other bullshit.
Thankfully, mindful meditation is indeed useful stand-alone.
Definitely shouldn’t be an all or nothing. I’d much rather people get some benefit, and know there might be more by going deeper, than get turned off to it.
Former Econ major, now in tech (worked at multiple unicorns in first 50 people and now am a repeat founder). Have hired all the functions over the years.
Product management, BizOps, corporate finance, or data science / data analytics are good bets. You can definitely try sales or marketing too if you want, undergrad major doesn’t matter much for those roles. SalesOps and Marketing Analytics / Growth Ops tend to be more interesting over time than Sales or Marketing channel ownership.
It’s hard to break in to being a PM, so often starting with strong analytical roles will help you make that case, if you’re not technical and don’t have UX experience. PM is generally an apprenticeship model so I’d recommend working under an A+ product-minder founder at a product-led company, over going to the Google APM program or something similar where you learn process more than results. You’ll learn faster.
No path is wrong - corp finance you get into by being an i-banker first, BizOps a consultant, data science through data analysis (or PhD but that doesn’t seem like your path). Professional services are mostly 2 year, entry level jobs so it’s far from a permanent decision if you did that. Great founders have come from many paths, like the recovering lawyers in the PayPal mafia.
Just make sure you stay humble and remember you’re not the one who can actually build the company, like your Eng partners :)
There’s no kindness in folks overdosing and dying at 25