by John Tamny
Major thanks to my parents, Peter and Nancy, for not losing faith in me as my career took what may have seemed like a strange turn. There was a purpose in all this. The End of Work is very much my story. As for Kim Tamny, the sister I don’t deserve, I’d like to think she’s been looking forward to Mondays since at least the late 1990s, when she went to work at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Which brings me to my wife Kendall, and our baby daughter, Claire. Kendall, thank you for being a very regular source of ideas behind The End of Work. Your own reading very much informed this book, and as I see it, gave life to its message. At the same time, thank you for putting up with me during the writing of it. While work that doesn’t feel like it is an amazing thing, sometimes it’s just work. And it can be terrifying. Thank you, for being there for me amid all of my worrying. Most important, it’s no exaggeration to say that without you, there quite simply are no books. Without your endless encouragement, I’d likely still be satisfied writing op-eds. What I owe you can’t be quantified, but it’s endless. And I’ll spend all my days trying to repay what you’ve done for me.
As for Claire, this book is for you. It was completed just a few weeks before you entered the world. Thank you for bringing your mother and me so much joy ever since. I’m thrilled that when you finish school, you’ll rarely dread Mondays. Thanks to persistent economic progress, your future won’t be filled with anxiety. In fact, the only unease you’ll experience will be over which talent you choose to express in the marketplace.
NOTES
Introduction
1.Hyman G. Rickover, “Notable & Quotable,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2015.
2.Keith Richards, Life (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2010), p. 490.
3.“Michael Jordan. How Important Is Practice?” 1991 Nike Ad. YouTube, 2:32. Posted December 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXdj8scRdFE.
4.Dan McCarney, “Quote history of Kobe: The Work Ethic,” NBA.com, April 11, 2016.
5.Warren Buffett, “Better than Raising the Minimum Wage,” Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2015.
6.Anupreeta Das, “Buffett’s Lucky Billionaires Club,” Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2015.
7.Andy Kierz, “Here’s how rich you’d be if you had bet $1,000 on Warren Buffett way back when,” Business Insider, March 2, 2015.
8.Peter Economy, “17 Remarkable Buffett Quotes that Will Inspire You to Remarkable Success and Happiness,” Inc.com, July 30, 2015.
Chapter One: Why College Football Players Should Major in College Football
1.Peter King, Inside the Helmet (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 12.
2.Matthew Futterman, “The Draft Prospect Out of Central Casting,” Wall Street Journal, April 25, 2017.
3.Andy Staples, “Decision 2016,” Sports Illustrated, May 2, 2016.
4.Tom Gerenger, “How Much Money Do NFL Players Make?” MoneyNation, January 5, 2016.
5.Brent Shrotenboer, “The NFL’s super plan to get even bigger,” USA Today, January 31, 2014.
6.Kurt Badenhausen, “The Dallas Cowboys Head The NFL’s Most Valuable Teams at $4.8 Billion,” Forbes, September 18, 2017.
7.“Football Wins Again,” Sports Illustrated, March 21, 2016.
8.Brian Billick and Michael MacCambridge, More Than a Game: The Glorious Present—and Uncertain Future—of the NFL (New York: Scribner, 2009).
9.King, Inside the Helmet, 24
10.Dan Patrick, “Just My Type,” Sports Illustrated, September 26, 2016
11.King, Inside the Helmet, 32.
12.Ibid., 33.
13.Pete Thamel, “Who Dak?” Sports Illustrated, October 17, 2016.
14.Greg A. Bedard, “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch- Changes,” Sports Illustrated, January 25, 2016.
15.Jenny Vrentas, “The New Reality,” Sports Illustrated, September 19, 2016.
16.King, Inside the Helmet, 84.
17.Ibid., 104.
18.Greg Bedard, “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch- Changes,” Sports Illustrated, January 25, 2016.
19.Ibid., 92.
20.Ibid., 113.
21.Andy Benoit, “Rob Gronkowski, Football Mastermind,” Sports Illustrated, September 19, 2016.
22.Ibid.
23.Greg A. Bedard, “College vs. Pro,” Sports Illustrated, April 18, 2016.
24.Ibid.
25.Ibid.
26.Ibid.
27.Andy Staples, “The New Superman,” Sports Illustrated, September 26, 2016.
28.Alan Siegel, “The top schools that have produced the best NFL players,” USA Today, October 10, 2015.
29.Billick and MacCambridge, More Than a Game.
30.Ibid.
31.Jimmy Boyd, “Who Are the Highest Paid NFL Coaches & What Are Their Salaries?” Boyd’sBets, January 17, 2017
32.“Right-Hand Man,” Washington Times, January 15, 2004, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/jan/15/20040115-112529-5440r/.
33.Alex Dunlap, “How Much Money Do NFL Front-Office Executives Make?” Bleacher Report, May 15, 2013.
34.Steve Berkowitz, Christopher Schnaars and Brent Schrotenboer, “More coaches hit $3M mark,” USA Today, October 27, 2016.
35.Erik Brady, Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, “Wisconsin bucks coaching salary trend,” USA Today, October 9, 2015.
36.Associated Press, “Alabama Approves Contract Extension for Nick Saban Worth $65 Million,” New York Times, May 2, 2017.
37.Associated Press, “Jimbo Fisher gets 10-year, $75 million deal at Texas A&M,” USA Today, December 4, 2017.
38.Ibid
39.Dan Woken, Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, “Being Head Coach Can Mean Less Money,” USA Today, December 10, 2015.
40.Associated Press, “LSU AD expected schools to seek out coordinator Dave Aranda,” USA Today, January 4, 2018.
41.Associated Press, “Alabama Approves Contract Extension for Nick Saban Worth $65 Million.”
42.Chad Leistikow and Steve Berkowitz, “Iowa pays strength coach $600K,” USA Today, August 23, 2016.
43.Dan Woken, Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, “Being Head Coach Can Mean Less Money”, USA Today, December 10, 2015.
44.Ibid.
45.Paul Myerberg, “No rest for Boise State coaches,” USA Today, June 15, 2015.
46.Dan Woken, Berkowitz and Schnaars, “Being Head Coach Can Mean Less Money.”
47.Robert Strauss, “Assistant Coaches Join the Millionaire's Club,” New York Times, February 12, 2016.
48.USA Today Sportsline, “MAGIC NUMBER - $174,107.65” – February 2, 2016.
49.“Texas town Oks $63M for a high school football stadium,” FoxNews.com, May 10, 2016.
50.Michael Adams, “Show Me the Money,” Austin American-Statesman, June 18, 2014.
51.USA Today Sportsline, “Magic Number, 15” USA Today, July 20, 2016.
52.USA Today Sportsline, “MAGIC NUMBER–$174,107.65,” February 2, 2016.
53.Jeff Sentell, “Alabama’s high school football coaching salaries soar past $120,000, search for how much your coach makes,” AL.com, April 26, 2015.
54.Dan Radakovich, “At Clemson, we’re proud of our success,” USA Today, December 30, 2015.
Chapter Two: Intelligence and Passion Don’t Stop at Football
1.Lee Jenkins, “Class In Session,” Sports Illustrated, October 28, 2015.
2.Alexandra Wolfe, “Weekend Confidential: Becky Hammon,” Wall Street Journal, April 29–30, 2017.
3.Chris Ballard, “Revenge of the Nerds,” Sports Illustrated, November 23, 2015.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6.Ibid.
7.Jenkins, “Class In Session.”
8.Ibid.
9.Lee Jenkins, “The Giant Killer,” Sports Illustrated, May 23, 2016.
10.Ibid.
11.Ibid.
12.Ibid.
13.Lee Jenkins, “LeBron’s Time,” Sports Illustrated, December 7, 2015.
14.Lee Jenkins, “A Simple Plan,” Sports Illustrated, March 6, 2017.
> 15.Kurt Badenhausen, “New York Knicks Head the NBA’s Most Valuable Teams at $3 Billion,” Forbes.com, January 20, 2016.
16.Horran Cameron, “The 411 on Overseas Basketball: Is It Worth It?” Fansided.
17.Nick Bedard, “Highest paid Chinese players in the CBA,” Basketball Buddha, January 20, 2015.
18.“NBA Head Coach Contracts,” OtherLeague, http://www.otherleague.com/contracts/nba-head-coach-contracts-salaries/.
19.Crystal Henderson, “Top 10 NBA Assistant Coaches: What They Once Earned as Players,” The Richest, January 23, 2014.
20.Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, “Record cash flows to college basketball coaches,” USA Today, March 30, 2017.
21.Steve Berkowitz and Christopher Schnaars, “At least 35 college hoops coaches in $2M-plus pay club,” USA Today, March 31, 2016.
22.Robert Strauss, “Assistant Coaches Join the Millionaire’s Club,” New York Times, February 12, 2016.
23.Ibid.
24.Rebecca Salinas, “50 highest-paid high school coaches in San Antonio,” mySA, December 17, 2015.
25.Ibid.
26.George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010), p. xiv.
27.Ibid., xx.
28.Ibid., xxvi.
29.Ibid., xxvii.
30.Ibid., 7.
31.Ibid., 13.
32.Ibid., 22.
33.Ibid., 30.
34.Ibid., 164.
35.Ibid., 209.
36.Ibid., 221.
37.Ben Reiter, “The Slugger & the Scout,” Sports Illustrated, May 8, 2017.
38.Mike Ozanian, “Baseball’s Most Valuable Teams,” Forbes.com, March 23, 2016.
39.Bob Nightengale, “Defending champion Royals spread wealth,” USA Today, April 4, 2016.
40.Barry Svrluga, The Grind: Inside Baseball’s Endless Season (New York: Blue Rider Press, 2015), 84.
41.Jimmy Boyd, “Highest Paid MLB Managers”, BoydsBets, February 12, 2016.
42.Tom Verducci, “Secret Decoder Kings,” Sports Illustrated, March 28, 2016.
43.Ibid.
44.Ibid.
45.Ibid.
46.Svrluga, The Grind, 48.
47.Ibid.
48.Thomas Boswell, “Mike Rizzo is worth every bit the Nationals are paying him—and more,” Washington Post, May 15, 2016.
49.Svrluga, The Grind, 42.
50.Ibid., 93.
51.Ibid., 131.
52.Albert Chen, “The Metrics System,” Sports Illustrated, August 22, 2016.
53.Bob Nightengale, “Dodgers Front Office Sets Stage For Success,” USA Today, August 15, 2017.
Chapter Three: Education Isn’t Meaningless, But It’s Grossly Overrated
1.Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (Liberty Classics, 1981), 165.
2.Kent Hartman, The Wrecking Crew (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012), 152.
3.Ibid., 153.
4.Ibid., 155.
5.Ibid., 154.
6.Ibid., 12.
7.Ibid., 13.
8.Ibid., 12.
9.Ibid., 13.
10.Ibid., 14–16.
11.Ibid., 42.
12.Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, 2005), 8.
13.Ibid., 332.
14.Ibid., 337.
15.Ibid., 338.
16.Hartman, The Wrecking Crew, 152.
17.Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography, 325.
18.Ibid., 87.
19.Ibid., 48.
20.Ibid., 108.
21.Ibid., 391.
22.Keith Richards, Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 2010), 40.
23.Ibid., 57.
24.Ibid., 58–59.
25.Ibid., 70–71.
26.Ibid., 77–78.
27.Marc Myers, “Born in a ‘Small Town’: How John Mellencamp Wrote the Song,” The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2016.
28.Ibid.
29.Richards, Life, 126–127.
30.Michael Keshen, “Top 9 Musicians Who Got Discovered on the Internet,” Hover, December 4, 2014.
31.Ibid.
32.Hartman, The Wrecking Crew, 154.
33.Ibid., 52.
34.Ibid., 384.
35.Ibid., 325.
36.Richards, Life, 102.
37.Ibid., 103.
38.Ibid., 110.
39.Ibid., 241.
40.Jeffrey J. Selingo, “College Isn’t Always the Answer,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015.
41.Jane Shaw, “Higher Learning, Meet Lower Job Prospects,” Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2013.
42.Steven F. Hayward, The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order (Roseville, Calif.: Forum, 2001), 610.
43.Ibid., 610.
44.Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 40.
45.Ibid., 102.
46.Mary Tradii, “Michael Dell,” Encyclopedia.com, 2005, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Michael_Dell.aspx.
47.David McCullough, The Wright Brothers (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 35.
48.Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), 19.
49.Alexandra Wolfe, “Weekend Confidential: Peter Berg,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2016–January 1, 2017.
50.Robyn Meredith, The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us (New York: Norton, 2007), 34.
51.Paul E. Peterson and Eric A. Hamushek, “The Vital Link of Education and Prosperity,” Wall Street Journal, September 11, 2013.
52.Nicholas Kristof, “The Educated Giant,” New York Times, May 28, 2007.
53.Fox Butterfield, China: Alive in the Bitter Sea (New York: Times Books, 1982).
54.Ibid.
55.Tom Nagorski, “The Chutzpah of Jack Ma,” Wall Street Journal, April 9–10, 2016.
56.George Gilder, Wealth and Poverty (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 99.
Chapter Four: What Was Once Silly Is Now Serious
1.Sam Kasner, “Both Huntress and Prey,” Vanity Fair, November 2014.
2.Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas, Life, on the Line (New York: Gotham Books, 2011), 4.
3.Danny Meyer, Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business (New York: Harper, 2008), paperback edition, 10.
4.Ibid., 9.
5.Ibid., 6–7.
6.Ibid., 20–21.
7.Ibid., 22.
8.Ibid.,. 26–29.
9.Ibid., 29.
10.Ibid., 30.
11.Ibid., 1–2.
12.Ibid., 48–49.
13.Ibid., 35.
14.Ibid., 175.
15.Ibid., 35.
16.Alexandra Wolfe, “Weekend Confidential: Wolfgang Puck,” Wall Street Journal, March 26–27, 2016.
17.Ibid.
18.Achatz and Kokonas, Life, on the Line, 23.
19.Ibid., 27.
20.Ibid., 39.
21.Ibid., 288.
22.Ibid., 324.
23.Charles Passy, “Enjoy That Cup of Coffee! Your Total Comes to $55,” Wall Street Journal, October 16, 2017.
24.Meyer, Setting the Table, 155.
25.Julian Fellowes, Snobs (New York: St. Martin’s, 2004), 123.
26.Roger Moore, Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (London: Michael O’Mara, 2012), 59.
27.Rob Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 79.
28.Ibid., 80–81.
29.Brett Martin, Difficult Men (New York: Penguin Press, 2013, 239.
30.Ibid., 65.
31.Ibid., 268.
32.Ibid., 269.
33.Damon Darlin, “Falling Costs of Big-Screen TV’s to Keep Falling,” New York Times, August 20, 2005.
34.Dave Lewis, “Complete list of 2016 Emmy nominees,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2016.
35.Josef Adalian and Maria Elena Fernandez, “The Business of Too Much TV,” New York, May 18, 2016.
36.Ibid.
37.Tom Huddleston
Jr., “These Networks (and Netflix) Dominated the 2016 Emmy Nominations,” Fortune, July 14, 2016.
38.John Koblin, “With More TV Shows than Ever Vying for Eyeballs, It’s Harder to Break Through,” New York Times, January 8, 2018.
39.Adalian and Fernandez, “The Business of Too Much TV.”
40.John Tamny, Popular Economics (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2015),189.
41.Bill Carter, The Late Shift (New York: Hyperion, 1994), 41.
42.Ibid., 44.
43.Jennifer Keishing Armstrong, Seinfeldia (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 10.
44.Ibid., 201.
45.Luke O’Neil, “Could a College Degree in Comedy Be Anything Other than a Joke?” New York Times Magazine, June 13, 2016.
46.Lowe, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, 266.
Chapter Five: Abundant Profits Make Possible the Work That Isn’t
1.Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism (New York: Basic Books, 2006), xii.
2.Nikhil Deogun, “The Legacy: Roberto Goizueta Led Coca-Cola Stock Surge, and Its Home Prospers,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 1997.
3.Ibid.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6.John Tamny, “If Charity Is Their Goal, Gates and Buffett Should Hoard Their Wealth,” Forbes.com, June 17, 2010.
7.Source: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Fact Sheet, http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Who-We-Are/General-Information/Foundation-Factsheet.
8.Deepa Seetharaman, “Zuckerberg Fund to Invest $3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2016.
9.Sarah Frier, “Mark Zuckerberg Philanthropy Pledge Sets New Giving Standard,” Bloomberg, December 1, 2015.
10.Robert Arnott, William Bernstein, and Lillian Wu, “The Myth of Dynastic Wealth: The Rich Get Poorer,” Cato Journal, Vol. 35 (Fall 2015): 461–463.
11.Arthur C. Brooks, Who Really Cares, 3.
12.Ibid.,
13.Ibid., 7.
14.Ibid., 77.
15.Ibid., 78.
16.Ibid., 124.
17.Blair Tindall, Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005),149.
18.Ibid., 50.
19.Ibid., 50.
20.Ibid., 53–54.
21.Ibid., 154.
22.Ibid., 208.
23.Ibid., 22.
24.Ibid., 86.
25.Ibid., 97.
26.Ibid., 209.
27.Ibid., 304.
28.Monte Burke, “College Coaches Deserve Their Pay,” Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2015.