When he was CEO of Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson reportedly had a notice sitting on his desk that read "If you aren't in on Saturday, don't bother showing up on Sunday". Very droll. The message was intended, no doubt, to make the point that it would take 24/7 commitment to keep up with his legendary work rate. If you'd been one of his team, maybe you'd have signed the Faustian pact. By that point, Paulson had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $600M. If you'd already made it onto his staff, presumably you'd be sitting on a paltry $100M. If you worked hard and got lucky, you too could hope to get the top job. For those who aren't familiar with it, "tournament theory" makes predictions about what happens when there is very sharp differentiation in reward inside an organization. The best writing on this is by Tim Harford, the FT's Undercover Economist ( http://bit.ly/nGfNq ). In a nutshell, the theory says that businesses find it ve
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