David Graeber’s bullshit jobs theory is one of my favourite ways to look at the world. Despite its critics, I still find it a very useful frame for understanding what’s broken in our economy. It becomes even more interesting when you think about how AI might affect knowledge workers.
I was reading Patrick Cavanaugh Koroly’s piece in that context, and it really made me think. My main takeaway was this: the ideal amount of bullshit in a job is probably non-zero. Some amount of admin, friction, or boring work is unavoidable. And it’s actually quite hard to define what counts as “bullshit” in the first place. The same task—like writing emails or dealing with paperwork—might feel like a waste of time to one person but be crucial to someone else’s work.
What I liked most about the article, especially when he brings in his friend’s take on Graeber, is this simple formulation: the best kind of work is done out of love and is aimed at actualising some real good in the world. That feels like a solid way to think about the work we choose to do with our lives.
What Koroly Actually Argues
The “bullshit jobs” conversation, popularized by Graeber’s viral essay, has become a staple of modern workplace discourse. But Koroly argues we’re all missing the point. The real problem isn’t that some jobs are meaningless—it’s that we’ve fused our entire identity with employment itself.
He points out this isn’t new. Franz Kafka diagnosed the exact same phenomenon decades before Graeber. The difference is that Kafka understood it as an existential crisis, not a labor market failure. When we complain about bullshit jobs, we’re really experiencing what Sartre called “bad faith”—hiding from our fundamental freedom by becoming our job title.
The Popular Solutions Miss the Mark
Take Alex McCann’s advice: keep your corporate job, but use it to fund “building something real” on the side. Sounds rebellious. But Koroly argues this just shifts the bad faith from employment to entrepreneurship. You’re still constructing your identity around what you do for money.
What about quitting altogether and going independent? Still doesn’t solve it. Emails, meetings, paperwork—they follow you everywhere. The administrative friction isn’t unique to corporate jobs. It’s inherent to getting anything done in the world.
And even if you achieve success, financial security, total independence—then what? These are means, not ends. They don’t answer the question of human existence.
What Actually Matters
Your humanity exists independent of your productivity. The work you do should be a companion to deeper questions about beauty, truth, and human flourishing—not a substitute for them.
The bullshit jobs discourse keeps us focused on optimizing our careers when we should be asking: who are we beyond what we do?