咨询业的“精英工厂”不过是一场关于耐力的 scamThe 'Elite Factory' of Consulting Was Always a Grind-based Scam
麦肯锡们所谓的“CEO工厂”叙事，本质上是一场关于耐力的 scam。过去十年，顶级毕业生被告知：只要忍受两年的高强度磨练（grind），就能获得一张通往权力中心的金票。这在逻辑上是一次典型的博弈：年轻人用主体性的暂时死亡——接受无意义的 PPT 刷屏和深夜加班——来交换一个被体制认可的“精英”身份。这种“学徒制”其实是结构性暴力的温床，它通过剥夺初级分析师的睡眠和生活，将其驯化为高效的执行机器。
现在 AI 来了，这套共谋机制崩了。当一个一年级分析师不再通过思考来“crack”问题，而是直接向资深同事索要 prompt 时，那个所谓的“能力培养过程”被瞬间抽干。AI 揭露了一个残酷的事实：那些被包装成“综合分析能力”和“领导力潜质”的技能，在很大程度上只是对大量琐碎信息的快速处理和格式化输出。当这种执行力被 AI 廉价地替代，咨询公司所谓的“价值主张”就成了彻头彻尾的 PR 话术。
最讽刺的是，公司领导层将此包装成“让年轻人更快地走向高价值工作”。这又是典型的 weaponized narrative。实际上，他们是在用 AI 替代思考者，寻找能够快速驱动 agent 的“润滑剂”（churners）。这不再是精英的筛选，而是将白领工作进一步“计件化”和“软件化”。
当进入门槛的“金票”失效，曾经的精英路径变成了 300 个人抢 5 个岗位的内卷场。这不仅是职业危机，而是一次认知入口的坍塌：原来那个被奉为神坛的“精英训练营”，不过是一个通过制造虚假稀缺来维持阶级壁垒的共谋场域。现在，这个场域被算法拆迁了。
The 'CEO factory' narrative pushed by firms like McKinsey is essentially a high-end scam based on endurance. For a decade, top graduates were told that enduring two years of brutal grind—the sacrifice of subjectivity for endless slide decks and midnight oil—would earn them a 'golden ticket' to the center of power. This was a calculated game: trading personal autonomy for a systemic stamp of approval as an 'elite'. This apprenticeship model was, in reality, a site of structural violence, domesticating junior analysts into efficient execution machines by stripping away their lives.
Now AI has arrived, and this complicity mechanism is collapsing. When a first-year analyst stops trying to 'crack' a problem through synthesis and instead asks for a prompt, the supposed 'skill-building process' is instantly hollowed out. AI exposes a brutal truth: much of what was marketed as 'sharp analysis' or 'leadership potential' was merely the rapid processing and formatting of fragmented information. Once this execution is cheapened by AI, the firms' value proposition is revealed as mere PR spin.
Most cynically, firm leaders frame this as 'moving juniors up the ladder faster.' This is a classic weaponized narrative. In truth, they are replacing thinkers with 'churners'—people who can grease the wheels of a new business model by running multiple AI agents. This is no longer a selection of elites, but the further 'piece-work' and 'software-ization' of white-collar labor.
As the 'golden ticket' loses its value, the prestige path transforms into a desperate scramble where 300 analysts fight for five jobs. This is more than a career crisis; it is the collapse of a cognitive entry point. The revered 'elite training camp' was nothing more than a complicity field maintaining class barriers through manufactured scarcity. Now, the algorithm has demolished the field.