As a college student in the late 1970s, Darell Krasnoff dreamed of getting a job with a company where he could climb the ranks and eventually become a top executive. He pretty much pulled it off, working at Goldman Sachs for 17 years and becoming a partner before leaving with some of his co-workers to form Century City money manager Bel Air Investment Advisors, where he serves as senior managing director.

Krasnoff’s son, 22-year-old Curren, had no interest in going down that road. Curren didn’t even make it through four years of university, leaving Hamilton College in upstate New York to start a company that makes waterproof canal-lining materials, Cortex Composites in Pacific Palisades.

Darell Krasnoff, who didn’t like his son’s decision at first, now thinks the unconventional career path is a sign of the times. As jobs with big companies no longer come with the same security and benefits they used to, prospective employees are less interested in hitching their wagon to one for the long run, the 57-year-old Krasnoff said.

“People are taking more career risk than they ever have,” he said.

While the senior Krasnoff has had tremendous success climbing the conventional career ladder, he has a lot of respect for those like his son who have chosen to go it alone rather than look for a stable job.

“To some extent, it requires greater personal talent and self-confidence to feel OK in a less structured world,” he said.

Tune Translations

Singer-songwriter Justin Chart, 54, loves Los Angeles so much that he is now dedicating his efforts full time to recording songs about Los Angeles – the latest one will feature vocals in more than a dozen languages.

Chart, who has worked on music for film and TV, began his L.A. period two years ago when he posted “Los Angeles the Song” to YouTube. The video went viral and now has more than 3 million views. He followed that up with other videos, including versions in Spanish. He makes a little money from ads but also plans to start selling song-related merchandise.

Now he’s working on a version featuring artists singing in 15 languages including Swahili and Hindi. One challenge is that Chart doesn’t speak those tongues. The artists will re-create the vocals in their languages and he’ll use translating software to make sure they stay true to the song’s positive spirit.

“I’m going to check every line myself,” he said. “I want to give it the ‘We Are the World’ vibe.”

Staff reporters Matt Pressberg and Jonathan Polakoff contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].