&gt;&quot;<i>Aren&#x27;t we supposed to be, like, building stuff that users want? Rather than just trying to get promoted and game the system?</i>&quot;<p>That&#x27;s the company&#x27;s job, not yours.<p>In fact, you are actually already doing it if you twist definitions a bit. The &quot;user&quot; is the company you work for, and you are the product. And you &quot;gaming&quot; the corporate-ladder system is you simply marketing the product (yourself) to your user&#x2F;client so that they pay you more for it.<p>The beauty of it is that the emergent behavior of those combined two agents yields a net positive for society. Do not be fooled into thinking that only &quot;noble&quot; academia is the way to advance humankind.