David Mullings was always a self-starter. Born in Jamaica, he moved to Florida to go to university, and founded his first company – a digital media firm that helped Caribbean content find a wider audience – before finishing business school at the University of Miami. In 2011 he opened a private-equity firm with his brother. In 2013 the two made their first big deal, acquiring an 80% stake in a Tampa-based producer of mobile apps. A year later it blew up in their faces, sinking their firm and their hopes.
Mullings struggled to recover from the blow. The odd consulting gig provided a distraction and some income. Yet depression set in as he found himself asking whether he had anything useful to contribute to the wider world.
Then Destiny called.
Read it all from the 1843 magazine.
This is a really interesting article because it appears to tie in to several trends that have developed over the last 10 to 15 years.
For instance, it is now being suggested that our low unemployment figures should be viewed with some suspicion because they do not reflect the large number of people who are opting not to apply for employment. On this score, the article and its comments bring up a good point. Is this necessarily a bad thing?
Will workplace automation, for instance, allow more people to enjoy more leisure? If so, what will be the health consequences of that leisure? And how is it to be paid for? Either the state is going to have to fund this, or as is implied in the article, parents are. I am not sure, over the long term, that either model is sustainable.
However, I thought one of the most interesting comments was the one that suggested that universities, both public and private, may be contributing to this problem. Given, the debt load that many of them now require students to assume, are they really ensuring valid value-added skill sets?
And are they setting graduate expectations so high, that people would rather do nothing that accept a job that would actually pay their living expenses?