If you ever have worked at a failed startup than you had a “bullshit” job. Bullshit jobs aren’t all bad, they are necessary hypotheses in the productivity market. The problem with them comes when institutions invert their competency hierarchy (this can happen shockingly fast, just ask an ex-Yahoo employee) and lose their ability to excise the bullshit. Bullshit jobs easily become institutionalized. It is all about managing risk. By the time an organization has a bunch of bullshit jobs the people that could tell management who is who are all long gone.