Walk-Away Jobs → S&P SaPs → The Kermitage

Hey Neighbor. True story. Two Cornell students are working the mailroom in Los Angeles. One turns to the other and says, “My LaCoste sport sets finally came.” The other is confused. “Why do you need that? You don't play sports.” The first one has an answer waiting. "I'm picking up tennis so I can network at the club this summer.”

It’s that season. Don’t let anyone tell you Hollywood is dead.

➺ Thanks to “Los Angeles Brunette” (how noir!) for the anecdote above. If you’ve heard something fantastically Upper Middle recently please share. It makes us so happy.

➺ Welcome to new readers. There are 2,732 new folks joining us for this issue. How’s that for some professional managerial class solidarity?"

➺ It’s okay to steal one flower from your neighbors’ garden if you don’t get caught.

Upper Middle’s 2025 Spoiled Dog Survey is our attempt to document the degree to which members of the oatmilk elite spoil their beloved pooches. Data will be shared with survey participants and, as always, with members. Polls close Wednesday evening.

SYMBOLS ❧ Signals We Send

Suburban Dogs

In our survey of Upper Middle readers, poodles and doodles were the common suburban breeds most associated with wealth while retrievers^[1] were the most associated with discernment and Spaniels – the Barbour coat-coded choice – were associated with both. Bulldogs, rarer outside of urban centers, were seen as trendy. Terriers and, somewhat more surprisingly, Shepherds were associated with neither discernment or wealth. No specific breeds were perceived as traditional.

Nom Nom is made for the kind of dog parents who want to know there are top-quality ingredients in their pups’ food (and would like to know a vet signed off on the chow). It’s great food for good dogs. Is it a bit fancy? Sure. Nothing wrong with that.

STATUS ❧ Intrusive Thinkers

Upper Middle spoke to her about how people like us can negotiate in the context of white-collar job losses.

Let’s start basic. Who wins a negotiation?
A negotiation is two people splitting a pie. Each party values the pie based on their feelings about their inside option [eating the pie] and their outside options [getting a different pie or not eating pie^[2]]. You can predict who will get more based on who has the better outside options and is therefore more willing to walk away.

Well-paid professionals are getting laid off at higher than historical rates. What can people like us do to advance our careers in that environment?
A lot of people in professional environments don't consider all of their options. Maybe that comes from wanting to win or expecting to win or getting wrapped up in the success metrics of that workplace. What often happens is that employees are told what they need to do by managers and they associate doing those thing with raises and promotions. But the critical question isn’t whether they did the thing. It’s whether their manager would fight for them – whether there’s a strong preference for the inside option. 

It sounds like you’re saying competent people might be overvaluing their own competence.
The only way you can get rewarded for being good at a very specific job is by getting to keep doing that same job. Getting too many company specific skills that aren't transferable makes it harder to leave because you lose value as an employee.

Is there an argument to be made that layoffs might help white-collar workers by forcing them to consider outside options or different games?
Maybe, but the best timing to start a business or find a new job isn’t when everyone else is getting laid off. Getting out sooner is better. The best time to look for a job is when you have a really secure job. That's when you're best able to negotiate and win that game. 

But lots of serious people don’t think of their careers as a game. Do you think that prevents them from behaving rationally?
A lot of people don't even want to look because they're afraid of being rejected, especially people who have historically excelled. I'm thinking of consulting and stressed out consulting VPs. If you're in the consulting game, you might be really good at playing that game and forget that winning requires choosing the right game to play in the first place. 

A decent percentage of knowledge workers pursue purpose-driven work. Do you think commitment to medicine or law or a “calling” makes it harder to negotiate? 
It cuts both ways. I didn’t write my book for the money. So when I was fighting my editor about what to include and what not to include it was easy to stick to my convictions. If you're pursuing something for intrinsic value, people may take advantage of you economically, but that can make you more powerful when negotiating the things you care about.

Daryl Fairweather, Briefly
Hometown: Los Angeles
Parent’s Jobs: Public Prosecutor and Journalist/Artist
Undergrad: MIT
High Level of Education Completed: PhD, University of Chicago
Favorite Board Game: Castles of Burgundy

➺ Jensen Huang says SF matters again. Sure, but is it any fun? ➺ Collecting baby data you can’t do anything with is weirdo behavior.^[3] ➺ Met Gala proves F1 is a cosmopolitan aesthetic first and a sport second. ➺ The tourists are gone so we can only be annoyed with each other.

MONEY ❧ Ask Mr. Market

Ask Mr. Market is authored by Andrew Feinberg, a retired hedge fund manager who has beaten the S&P 500 for the last 30 years. He is the author/co-author of four books on personal finance.

Dear Mr. Market,

I inherited money from my mother two years ago and the portfolio is sitting there like a lox. And not in a good way. Please advise.

Bageled in Boston

Dear Poppy,

Letting an inherited portfolio lie unattended is a huge, and extremely common, investment mistake. What I tell anyone who inherits is this: Sell everything and re-invest it according to your existing plan. This allows folks who inherit to avoid tax issues because all capital gains liabilities go poof at the time of death due to the step-up in basis. Unfortunately you, Poppy, have held these assets.

Don’t feel too bad. You’re not alone. My friend Ellen wore AT&T like an albatross for 30 years. She got it from her beloved father. Her dad was great. His stock picks were not.

I’ve been there too. My Grandpa Charlie gave me $2,000 in ITT stock when he died. I was five. I sold the stock 20 years later for $2,000. That is not a good 20-year return. My only excuse, and it is a bad one, is that the stock, which had made our family kinda rich, was part of my identity. 

Among the few absolute truths in investing is this: You should own a specific financial asset only for a specific financial reason. If you don’t have a specific financial reason to own something, sell it. Assume your parents’ and grandparents’ stock picks suck.  Given that only 5% of pros can beat the market, it’s a safe bet.

When someone leaves you an inheritance, be grateful for the money—not the holdings. The money represents love. The specific allocation does not. 

Cheers,

Mr. Market

➺ According to a new report from Redfin (thanks Daryl), homebuyers must earn $50K more than renters to afford their monthly housing payments. ➺ Declining office occupancy is leading to residential tax hikes, meaning we’re now paying to work from home. ➺  BudgetGPT is coming for your wealth advisor’s job and… can definitely have it.^[4]

TASTE ❧ Social Dynamics

The Amphibious Theory of Audio Attention

In 1956, Erving Goffman pubbed The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which argued that the selfhood is a campaign to maintain a high-status public persona  – or “face” – while performing in “front stage” public environments and recovering in “back stage” private environments. Basically, he argued, life is The Muppet Show and we’re all Kermit. 

That means sometimes Kermit is zyn’ed up and unprepared for his guests.

In a lengthy, felt arm-waving profile published last week, the NYT described Theo Von, host of the incredibly popular “This Past Weekend” podcast,” as “one of the defining conversationalists in America.” This is wrong and it’s where Goffman can be instructive. He argued that back stage environments have their own permission structure built off the back of the idea that things can be said, but not meant in a recovery environment. (Consider your last round of CBT.)

Despite almost certainly accounting for the bulk of Von’s income, “This Past Weekend” is literally constructed to seem like “back stage.” Coupled with the fact that Von performs on literal front stages, this creates a manufactured environment in which Von can’t lose face. The irony, of course, is that this back stage is actually a set built on a front stage (a la The Muppet Show). Still, it’s better than nothing. With the digital panopticon expanding all the time, most people – and perhaps men in particular – don’t have access to even a contrived back stage. They always have to worry about face. They admire Von because he doesn’t.

But is Von one of our defining conversationalists? Absolutely not. Conversations are public. They are mutual theater. They happen on the front stage. Von’s stroke of brilliance is that he’s found a way to avoid conversing on the front stage. Instead, he’s talking shit. And he’s very good at that.

➺ Someone finally did the Père Lachaise book, a complete history of the cemetery and its famous corpses. ➺  Snake points out we’ve all been sleeping on the Le Creuset panini grill ➺ French tacos are a thing now. ➺ The goods shows are now about how no one knows how to make good shows. ➺  Sneaking your phone into someone’s party is low rent.

[2] There is nothing more powerful than the willingness to forego pie.

[3] More on this soon. Because… honestly….

[4] Automated wealth managers are coming online just as political madness makes pattern recognition all but impossible for traditional wealth managers. It’s kind of a perfect storm.