Medical doctors are paid well in many places other than the US, though not as well as in the US. (For that matter, most other well-paid jobs are better paid in the US than anywhere else. Software development, law, senior management, etc.)
Also, though of course this was no part of the original question, medicine offers more confidence than most careers that your work is actually making the world a better place. (Which may not actually be the right question to ask, of course—what matters is arguably the marginal effect, and if you’re well paid and care enough about people in poor countries you may well be able to do more good by charitable donations than you ever could directly by your work. But it’s a thing many people care about.)
I think that’s intended. Trying to achieve greater wealth generally involves much higher risk, and even if it offers a higher expected value in terms of money, the diminishing utility of wealth probably makes the expected utility of, say, creating a startup, lower than just pursuing a middle-class career that matches your skills.
Well, Wei Dai said “maximize the expected value of some function of your income”; which career achieves that will depend on whether the function is log(x), x, H(x - $40,000/year), exp(x/($1M/year)), or what.
This seems awfully US centric.
Anyway, these advices aim at “higher middle class”, not “rich bastard” category. Maybe apart from “marry someone rich”.
Well, Western-developed-world-centric, true.
In dynamic economies (e.g. China) you probably would want to start a business. In stagnant and poor places your first priority should be to get out.
Going into finance or law can propel you into the “rich bastard” category.
Medical doctors are paid well in many places other than the US, though not as well as in the US. (For that matter, most other well-paid jobs are better paid in the US than anywhere else. Software development, law, senior management, etc.)
Also, though of course this was no part of the original question, medicine offers more confidence than most careers that your work is actually making the world a better place. (Which may not actually be the right question to ask, of course—what matters is arguably the marginal effect, and if you’re well paid and care enough about people in poor countries you may well be able to do more good by charitable donations than you ever could directly by your work. But it’s a thing many people care about.)
More importantly, it seems that being a medical doctor can pay very large dividends both in donable dollars and in warm-fuzzies.
I think that’s intended. Trying to achieve greater wealth generally involves much higher risk, and even if it offers a higher expected value in terms of money, the diminishing utility of wealth probably makes the expected utility of, say, creating a startup, lower than just pursuing a middle-class career that matches your skills.
Well, Wei Dai said “maximize the expected value of some function of your income”; which career achieves that will depend on whether the function is log(x), x, H(x - $40,000/year), exp(x/($1M/year)), or what.
I assumed it was referring to (part of) Wei Dai’s utility function. What other functions could there be a point in applying?
Yes, but we don’t know what Wei Dai’s utility function is, and the answer to his question may depend on that.