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Finance: What is Opportunity Cost? 348 Views


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What is opportunity cost? In short, it's the eventual monetary cost of choosing to do one thing over another (often choosing travel or experiences over their monetary equivalent). That contract guaranteeing you $100k a year might sound terrific when you're staring $200k of student loans in the face, but if it locks you out of a much higher paying job five years down the road, you can kiss wealth and financial success good-bye.

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00:00

Finance What is opportunity cost All right Opportunity cost the

00:07

value you forfeit by choosing a path a over path

00:10

be and path a end or b can mean doing

00:13

nothing at all right Here's an example Opportunity cost people

00:16

Let's say you have a choice of taking two jobs

00:19

One is a safe steady gig with ibm You have

00:21

to commit to working there for twenty five years But

00:24

the big blue boss has promised that at the end

00:25

of that time period you'll get a good watch and

00:28

a million dollars twenty five years and a million bucks

00:31

and a reasonably decent lifestyle with low risk All right

00:34

well that's half a two years into the gig You

00:37

notice that a lot of your friends are whining about

00:39

taxes and they're buying porsche's You're still paying off school

00:43

loans working for ibm there Then ten years later your

00:46

friends or buying jets What happened Well they went to

00:50

work for a risky start up in silicon valley and

00:53

got stock options And of course you think we'll shoot

00:56

Where can i get me some of that Well you

00:58

committed to the safe steady big blue for twenty five

01:02

years you uh paid them with your commitment And in

01:05

the process you gave away other opportunities You might have

01:09

had teo make real bank by your own jets The

01:12

opportunity cost of your desire for a nice safe job

01:17

cost you big If you had been lucky enough to

01:19

get a Job at 1 of those hot startup you'd

01:20

be flushed with cash today just like your buddies All

01:23

right Another example And this happens to be a common

01:25

google interview question You win two free front row tickets

01:28

to a sick poppy's concert which sell on stubhub for

01:31

a thousand bucks each You decide to go to the

01:33

concert How much did the tickets cost you They were

01:36

free You say uh no You could have taken ninety

01:39

seconds fill out stub up form and gotten too grand

01:42

just selling them You chose not to receive the two

01:45

grand go to the concert instead which in a land

01:47

of opportunity cost lost is the same as paying two

01:50

grand for the tickets In other words money earned and

01:52

money lost It is not just counted by the dollar

01:55

bills that flow in between your fingers It's the value

01:58

in opportunities you take and in the value of the

02:01

ones you miss So when you see an opportunity take 00:02:04.09 --> [endTime] it especially if it gets you frequent flyer miles

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