In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

The line praises teaching as the highest civic calling: if society were guided purely by reason and the common good, it would place its most capable people in classrooms shaping future citizens. The implied critique is that real societies often reward status, money, and power more than public service, so teaching—despite its outsized social impact—tends to be undervalued. Coming from a prominent business leader, the remark also functions as a corrective to corporate prestige: it suggests that leadership and talent are not inherently best expressed in boardrooms, and that the long-term health of a community depends on investing its best minds in education.