Yes, recognizing reality and the incentive structure is powerful. Then one can make smart tradeoffs. Most people want to stay in apparent alignment with their employer to advance. But sometimes perfect alignment isn’t optimal for what you want to do next.

Some examples:

Some might want to work on an interesting project with a new technology, even though it isn’t a recognized fit for your company.

Some prefer to build strong and trusted relationships for referrals later.

Some people will pursue aims that are to the detriment of their company. *

It is wise to recognize the diversity of goals in people around you.

* Getting great alignment is not easy. Not with people, not with highly capable intelligent agents trained with gradient descent that will probably operate outside their training distribution. Next time you think a powerful AI agent will do everything in your interests, ask yourself if your employee will do everything you want, just as you would want it.