JGWeissman:

Generally, the effecient market hypothesis does not imply that it is impossible to find opportunities to do work to create value. It implies that you are not likely to find opportunities to get much better than a typical return of value for work.

I agree. In fact, the principle can be refined even further: you're not likely to find opportunities much better than a typical career path accomplished by people whose abilities and qualities are comparable to yours. So if you think you've found a great opportunity, it's not at all impossible that you're correct, but it does mean that you're either very lucky or exceptionally capable.

These points may seem trivial, but in reality, I'm baffled with how many people don't seem to understand them. The most obvious example are all those people who keep insisting that they can beat the stock market, but I've seen many others too.