Everyone wants the corner office. They want the title, the equity, and the ability to delegate the stuff that feels like busy work. But honestly? If you skip the basement, you’re probably going to build a house on sand. People talk about how hard it is to start at the bottom like it’s some kind of hazing ritual you just have to survive. It isn’t. It’s actually the only time in your career where you’re allowed to be bad at things while seeing how the entire machine actually functions.
When you're the person making the copies or running the basic data entry, you see the leaks. You see where the communication breaks down between the sales team and the product guys. You see the stuff the CEO has long since forgotten.
Think about Sidney Weinberg. Most people today don't know the name, but he was the "Mr. Wall Street" of his era. He didn't come in with an MBA from a school with ivy on the walls. He literally started as a janitor's assistant at Goldman Sachs in 1907. His job was cleaning spittoons. He earned $3 a week. Because he was at the very bottom, he learned the filing system better than anyone else. He knew where every body was buried, metaphorically speaking. By the time he was running the firm, he had a level of institutional knowledge that no outside hire could ever hope to replicate.
The Invisible Benefit of Being Nobody
There is a weird kind of freedom in being the lowest-ranked person in the room. Nobody expects you to have the answers. This means you can ask the "dumb" questions that everyone else is too embarrassed to bring up. When you start at the bottom, your ego hasn't had time to calcify yet. You can pivot. You can fail.
If a Senior VP messes up a basic projection, it’s a scandal. If the intern flags a weird discrepancy in a spreadsheet, they’re a hero.
Most people are so busy trying to look important that they miss the chance to be useful. When you are at the entry level, your only job is to be useful. That utility builds a reputation that sticks. It’s the "referent power" that sociologists like John French and Bertram Raven talked about—power that comes from people liking and respecting you, rather than just your spot on an org chart.
✨ Don't miss: The Man Behind the Yellow Sign: Why Bill Moran and the Original Save A Lot Strategy Still Work
Why Your First Job Should Probably Suck a Little
I’m not saying you should look for a toxic environment. Definitely don't do that. But a job that requires "grunt work" is a massive advantage. Look at the restaurant industry. Every legendary chef—think Thomas Keller or the late Anthony Bourdain—spent years peeling potatoes and scrubbing walk-in freezers.
Bourdain wrote about this extensively in Kitchen Confidential. He argued that the kitchen is a meritocracy of the most basic kind. It doesn't matter who your dad is if you can't work the line during a Saturday night rush. By starting in the dish pit, you learn the pacing. You learn what makes a cook's life miserable. Later, when you're the one designing the kitchen or running the floor, you don't make the stupid mistakes that lead to a walk-out.
You’ve been there. You have "dirt under the fingernails" credibility.
What Most People Get Wrong About Career Ladders
Social media has ruined our perception of time. You see a 22-year-old "founder" on TikTok and think you're behind because you're still filing expense reports. But the reality of those "overnight" successes is usually a lot more boring.
Most of them are either:
- Backed by family money (which isn't really starting at the bottom).
- Working 80-hour weeks in total obscurity for five years before anyone noticed.
The "ladder" isn't a straight line up. It's more like a jungle gym. Sometimes you have to move sideways. Sometimes you stay at the bottom of a new department just to learn a different skill. That’s okay. In fact, it’s smart. Generalists often outperform specialists in the long run because they can connect dots that others can't even see.
Skill Acquisition vs. Title Acquisition
When you're obsessed with the title, you stop learning. You start protecting your status. But when you start at the bottom, you are in pure acquisition mode.
- You learn the "Language" of the Business: Every industry has its own jargon. You learn it by osmosis when you're doing the legwork.
- Empathy for the Front Line: You will eventually manage people. If you've never done their job, they will know. They will smell the inexperience on you, and they won't trust your directives.
- Resilience: Rejection feels less fatal when you've already survived being the "low man on the totem pole."
Take Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx. She didn't start in fashion. She spent seven years selling fax machines door-to-door. She was at the bottom of the sales food chain, getting doors slammed in her face every single day. That "bottom-tier" experience gave her the thick skin she needed when every hosiery manufacturer in North Carolina told her that her footless pantyhose idea was garbage. If she had started at the top of a marketing firm, she might have quit after the first "no."
The Danger of Starting Too High
We’ve all seen the "nepo baby" or the MBA whiz kid who gets dropped into a management role without ever having done the work. It’s usually a disaster. They try to optimize processes they don't understand. They cut costs in areas that actually keep the company's culture alive.
📖 Related: Bristol Myers Squibb Stock: What Most People Get Wrong
When you skip the bottom, you lack the "contextual intelligence" that Harvard professor Joseph Nye talks about. You have the theory, but you don't have the "feel." It's the difference between reading a book about swimming and actually jumping into the Atlantic in November.
How to Actually Leverage a Low-Level Position
If you're currently in a spot that feels beneath your "potential," stop sulking. It’s a waste of energy. Instead, treat it like a reconnaissance mission.
Observe the leadership. Who do people actually follow? Is it the person with the loudest voice, or the person who actually solves the problems? Take notes. Not literal notes (unless that's your job), but mental ones.
Create Your Own Apprenticeship
Since nobody is looking at you, you have the chance to "job shadow" without it being a formal thing. Stay late once a week. Help the person in the department you actually want to be in. If you're a mailroom clerk but want to be an agent—the classic David Geffen or Barry Diller route—start reading the scripts that are laying around.
Geffen famously "borrowed" a letter from the mailroom to forge his college credentials because he knew he needed that foot in the door at William Morris. While I’m not suggesting you commit forgery, the point is he treated the mailroom like a masterclass in the entertainment business. He read every memo. He knew who was talking to whom. By the time he got promoted, he already knew how the deals were structured.
Actionable Steps for the "Bottom" Phase
If you feel stuck at the entry level, here is how you move without losing the benefits of your current position.
1. Master the Mundane First
If you can't be trusted to get the lunch order right or format a basic deck, no one is going to trust you with a million-dollar budget. Precision at the bottom signals capacity for the top.
2. Map the Informal Network
The org chart is a lie. Figure out who really makes things happen. Is it the executive assistant? The head of IT? Build relationships with those people. They are the gatekeepers.
3. Volunteer for the "Muck"
When a project is failing or a task is so boring nobody wants it, take it. This is how you gain "low-stakes" leadership experience. If you turn a boring task into a success, people notice.
4. Keep a "Wins" Log
When you start at the bottom, your contributions are easily overlooked. Keep a private list of what you've done. When it comes time for a review, you’ll have the data to prove you’ve outgrown your current shoes.
The bottom isn't a place you want to stay forever, but it is the most fertile ground you'll ever encounter. It builds the grit, the knowledge, and the empathy that defines a real leader. Don't rush out of it so fast that you forget to pick up the tools you'll need later.