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I find this website absurd. Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? Because if so, most likely there i

I find this website absurd. Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? Because if so, most likely there is little coherence between any of these pieces, meaning that people will really just listen to whichever article they agree with. Also, lot of this advice in particular, sucks: "Reverse engineer the paths of famous people" - too bad these paths often start very young due to privilege and wealth, and also have huge amounts of luck involved. The two things you can't really control in this world: how rich your parents are, and how lucky you are. "Avoid spending time to earn money" - what, like compound growth isn't a thing? I would much, much rather make $20 now than have to make $100, or $500 when I'm 60. "Work to solve problems that aren't popular" - his/her advice is, work on an un-important problem because no one cares about it, so at least you'll make big contributions. But, ummm, no one will care. This goes common advice, which is to seek leverage in your role - that is, big effects through small contributions. I could go on. This is garbage and just not redeemable.

themodelplumber 7y ago
> Reverse engineer the paths of famous people I agree; I work as a coach and have to say that this path is fraught with peril. The delta from one psychology to the next is significant enough that this activity could easily cause someone to feel exhaustion before they even get started putting the learned path into place. IMO much better advice is to "reverse engineer" your own past and treat that as a guide, asking yourself when you were happiest, most productive, etc. This can far more easily result in "scalable" information.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  It’s also fraught with Survivorship Bias. Look at successes and try to find a common thing they do or attribute they have, ignoring the failures that also did that thing or had that attribute. It’s basically the plot of every business self help book out there.
  - deehouie 7y ago
    This comment should move to the top. You see the success stories because they have succeeded. You never hear the failures. And they are everywhere.
paulsutter 7y ago
Described more concisely here in “four simple steps to become a billionaire”: http://longorshortcapital.com/four-simple-steps-to-becoming-a-billionaire.htm http://longorshortcapital.com/four-simple-steps-to-becoming-... 1. Take outrageous risks with extremely high upside. 2. Be the 1 out of 500 million for whom it pans out. This one is key so focus on it. 3. Attribute your wealth creation to your own hard work, your own genius and the power of your business plan. Be sure to stress how your wealth was singularly made possible by your unique endowment of elbow grease, street smarts, common sense, all of which your competitors obviously lacked (proven by how poor they are compared to you). 4. Buy a mega yacht and/or athletic team.
- Infernal 7y ago
  I normally agree with the tone of this, but between 1 and 2 I noticed - how many people are there out there really that have ever taken an enormous risk with extremely high upside? I certainly never have, and neither has anyone I know. Maybe the 1 in 500 million should be a bit better odds, considering how few people decide not to "play the game" to begin with?
  - lordgrenville 7y ago
    In this context, the 1 in 500 million doesn't mean that there are 500 million other people to compete with - it's the chance of a huge success. So the number of other people trying it isn't relevant.
    - Infernal 7y ago
      Yeah, I guess it was the phrasing "1 in 500 million _for whom_" that got me thinking in terms of absolute numbers who make the attempt.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - doesnt_know 7y ago
    It's much easier to take "enormous risks" when you've got a golden parachute. For 99% of people taking huge risks means career, financial or literal suicide and (at best) poverty for their loved ones. Or I guess put another way, most people are too busy trying to survive to think about playing the game.
teh_klev 7y ago
Danny I'm all the way with you on your comments, for example: > Find good thinkers and cold-call the ones you most admire This one....did any of these "thinkers" reply in any meaningful way? Please give examples. > when I wrote out of the blue to say that I wanted to work for them. Did you actually get a job, or even an interview....the author doesn't say?
- robertwiblin 7y ago
  They replied and they got a job.
  - teh_klev 7y ago
    Then perhaps mention that. And also why they got the job. We don't need identifying details, but at least the article should expand on that. I'm not having a go, but if you're going to give advice demonstrate how this advice works.
robertwiblin 7y ago
> "I find this website absurd. Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? ... This is garbage and just not redeemable." Thanks for your feedback. If you look around you'll see it's almost all written by a handful of full-time staff - this piece from an anonymous contributor is almost unique. Most articles we write at this point are less high-level than this one, though pages that focus on general advice which is applicable to a wide range of people naturally attract the most traffic.
- Phlarp 7y ago
  Is there anything about this staff of writers that qualifies them to give valuable advice to the types of people that frequent hacker news?
  - sethherr 7y ago
    Yes. 8000 hours was in YC for non-profits.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    https://80000hours.org/about/meet-the-team/ https://80000hours.org/about/meet-the-team/ I count three doctorates, a medical doctor, a Yale Law dropout and a Master’s in Philosophy. More importantly, they actually do research.
    - nprateem 7y ago
      Are they giving advice on how to become a doctorate, medical doctor or dropout? I know several people with letters before and after their names with impressive sounding job titles who are pretty clueless about what they actually want out of life and how to be happy.
- BinaryIdiot 7y ago
  > Most articles we write at this point are less high-level than this one Flipping through a few pages and I don't see anything all hat redeemable. It's all very generic stuff that "motivational speakers" repeat over and over in slightly different ways. Like, I don't see any specific advice for anything that would allow you to take direct, measurable action. I get why you do it, though. Like you said, those pages attract the most traffic. It's just my opinion that it adds to the garbage online that does the opposite of helping people.
basetop 7y ago
I completely agree. All these career advice and self-help are mostly useless. Pretty much success is "showing up" + "effort" + "luck". Luck is who you know, who your dad knows, how the economy is, where you are born, when you are born, what opportunities are available, etc. "Showing up" and "effort", you can control. Luck you can't. The career advice and self-help industry are just modern day snake oil peddled to the gullible who are either lazy or who refuse to accept that luck plays a role in success. The ambitious go dig for gold. The smart businessman sells shovels to the gold prospectors. The clever ones write self-help books for all the failed gold prospectors.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  "All these career advice and self-help are mostly useless." Actually, no, most of it is very good advice. It's just harder to do in practice, and you can't expect to be a billionaire.
barry-cotter 7y ago
> Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? No, it’s mostly moral philosophy arguments about why you should work on big, important problems https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ research on what those problems are https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/ https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/ and career guides with 40-100 hours of research on some areas where people who want to make an impact could work https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/ https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/ as well as a jobs board advertising open positions for people who want to do that. https://80000hours.org/job-board/ https://80000hours.org/job-board/ They’re also not “random people”. I understand if you prefer to only read arguments from high prestige people rather than evaluating them on their merits, one has limited time after all. The Effective Altruist movement was founded by Toby Ord, an Oxford professor, and the associated Future of Humanity and Global Priorities Institutes are based there. Rob Wiblin, the founder of 80,000 hours has interviewed Rachel Glennerster, head of the UK’s Department for International Development and former director of MIT’s Poverty Action Lab and an effective altruist as well as Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame. You can be confident that they’re not “random people”. > Because if so, most likely there is little coherence between any of these pieces, meaning that people will really just listen to whichever article they agree with. That’s ok. If people are persuaded they should work on important problems there are lots to go round. The world is getting better and better but we have a long way to go before fully automated space communism. > Also, lot of this advice in particular, sucks: "Reverse engineer the paths of famous people" - too bad these paths often start very young due to privilege and wealth, and also have huge amounts of luck involved. But they don’t always. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Richard Branson did not grow up rich. There are in fact lessons in “You can start a business” or “Computer Science is a great area to study if you want to make enormous piles of money.” > The two things you can't really control in this world: how rich your parents are, and how lucky you are. How lucky you are is not entirely in your control but you can certainly influence it. Do more things, meet more people, work on hard problems; those are possible for a great many people and if you do them you will come across more opportunities. More generally “The harder I work the luckier I get.” as Samuel Goldwyn said. https://lifehacker.com/the-harder-i-work-the-luckier-i-get-5809636 https://lifehacker.com/the-harder-i-work-the-luckier-i-get-5... > "Work to solve problems that aren't popular" - his/her advice is, work on an un-important problem because no one cares about it, so at least you'll make big contributions. But, ummm, no one will care. This goes common advice, which is to seek leverage in your role - that is, big effects through small contributions. If you want to do good rather than gain plaudits working on neglected problems is great advice. Climate change has UN panels and mass demonstrations, detecting and reflecting potential asteroid impacts has the next best thing to nothing. If you work on the latter problem the chances of you making a big marginal impact are a great deal higher. More research money and researcher time goes to breast cancer than to curing ageing. The world has insane priorities and it’s entirely possible to make a big impact by working in a field that’s neglected.
autokad 7y ago
> "Reverse engineer the paths of famous people" would have been better written as successful people, or people in positions you want to be in. I find reverse engineering how people got to where they are quite useful, and with linkedin its free. I wanted a certain position in 5 years, so I went to linkedin and looked at people who were there now, and I found all of them had at least a masters degree. I got extremely motivated, studied day and night for years and got there. oddly enough, it really did take me exactly 5 years. I thought I would have been able to get their sooner with some optimization, but I am very happy with the results. I disagree strongly with "Avoid spending time to earn money". when we are young, that is exactly the most crucial time to be investing our money and spending less. had I contributed 18k~ to my retirement instead of putting in up to the match rate, I don't think my standard of living would have dropped substantially but I could retire 10 years sooner.

themodelplumber 7y ago

> Reverse engineer the paths of famous people I agree; I work as a coach and have to say that this path is fraught with peril. The delta from one psychology to the next is significant enough that this activity could easily cause someone to feel exhaustion before they even get started putting the learned path into place. IMO much better advice is to "reverse engineer" your own past and treat that as a guide, asking yourself when you were happiest, most productive, etc. This can far more easily result in "scalable" information.

ryandrake 7y ago
It’s also fraught with Survivorship Bias. Look at successes and try to find a common thing they do or attribute they have, ignoring the failures that also did that thing or had that attribute. It’s basically the plot of every business self help book out there.
- deehouie 7y ago
  This comment should move to the top. You see the success stories because they have succeeded. You never hear the failures. And they are everywhere.

paulsutter 7y ago

Described more concisely here in “four simple steps to become a billionaire”: http://longorshortcapital.com/four-simple-steps-to-becoming-a-billionaire.htm http://longorshortcapital.com/four-simple-steps-to-becoming-... 1. Take outrageous risks with extremely high upside. 2. Be the 1 out of 500 million for whom it pans out. This one is key so focus on it. 3. Attribute your wealth creation to your own hard work, your own genius and the power of your business plan. Be sure to stress how your wealth was singularly made possible by your unique endowment of elbow grease, street smarts, common sense, all of which your competitors obviously lacked (proven by how poor they are compared to you). 4. Buy a mega yacht and/or athletic team.

Infernal 7y ago
I normally agree with the tone of this, but between 1 and 2 I noticed - how many people are there out there really that have ever taken an enormous risk with extremely high upside? I certainly never have, and neither has anyone I know. Maybe the 1 in 500 million should be a bit better odds, considering how few people decide not to "play the game" to begin with?
- lordgrenville 7y ago
  In this context, the 1 in 500 million doesn't mean that there are 500 million other people to compete with - it's the chance of a huge success. So the number of other people trying it isn't relevant.
  - Infernal 7y ago
    Yeah, I guess it was the phrasing "1 in 500 million _for whom_" that got me thinking in terms of absolute numbers who make the attempt.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- doesnt_know 7y ago
  It's much easier to take "enormous risks" when you've got a golden parachute. For 99% of people taking huge risks means career, financial or literal suicide and (at best) poverty for their loved ones. Or I guess put another way, most people are too busy trying to survive to think about playing the game.

teh_klev 7y ago

Danny I'm all the way with you on your comments, for example: > Find good thinkers and cold-call the ones you most admire This one....did any of these "thinkers" reply in any meaningful way? Please give examples. > when I wrote out of the blue to say that I wanted to work for them. Did you actually get a job, or even an interview....the author doesn't say?

robertwiblin 7y ago
They replied and they got a job.
- teh_klev 7y ago
  Then perhaps mention that. And also why they got the job. We don't need identifying details, but at least the article should expand on that. I'm not having a go, but if you're going to give advice demonstrate how this advice works.

robertwiblin 7y ago

> "I find this website absurd. Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? ... This is garbage and just not redeemable." Thanks for your feedback. If you look around you'll see it's almost all written by a handful of full-time staff - this piece from an anonymous contributor is almost unique. Most articles we write at this point are less high-level than this one, though pages that focus on general advice which is applicable to a wide range of people naturally attract the most traffic.

Phlarp 7y ago
Is there anything about this staff of writers that qualifies them to give valuable advice to the types of people that frequent hacker news?
- sethherr 7y ago
  Yes. 8000 hours was in YC for non-profits.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  https://80000hours.org/about/meet-the-team/ https://80000hours.org/about/meet-the-team/ I count three doctorates, a medical doctor, a Yale Law dropout and a Master’s in Philosophy. More importantly, they actually do research.
  - nprateem 7y ago
    Are they giving advice on how to become a doctorate, medical doctor or dropout? I know several people with letters before and after their names with impressive sounding job titles who are pretty clueless about what they actually want out of life and how to be happy.
BinaryIdiot 7y ago
> Most articles we write at this point are less high-level than this one Flipping through a few pages and I don't see anything all hat redeemable. It's all very generic stuff that "motivational speakers" repeat over and over in slightly different ways. Like, I don't see any specific advice for anything that would allow you to take direct, measurable action. I get why you do it, though. Like you said, those pages attract the most traffic. It's just my opinion that it adds to the garbage online that does the opposite of helping people.

basetop 7y ago

I completely agree. All these career advice and self-help are mostly useless. Pretty much success is "showing up" + "effort" + "luck". Luck is who you know, who your dad knows, how the economy is, where you are born, when you are born, what opportunities are available, etc. "Showing up" and "effort", you can control. Luck you can't. The career advice and self-help industry are just modern day snake oil peddled to the gullible who are either lazy or who refuse to accept that luck plays a role in success. The ambitious go dig for gold. The smart businessman sells shovels to the gold prospectors. The clever ones write self-help books for all the failed gold prospectors.

sonnyblarney 7y ago
"All these career advice and self-help are mostly useless." Actually, no, most of it is very good advice. It's just harder to do in practice, and you can't expect to be a billionaire.

barry-cotter 7y ago

> Is it really just articles by random people which give high-level advice on how to have a career? No, it’s mostly moral philosophy arguments about why you should work on big, important problems https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ https://80000hours.org/key-ideas/ research on what those problems are https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/ https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/ and career guides with 40-100 hours of research on some areas where people who want to make an impact could work https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/ https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/ as well as a jobs board advertising open positions for people who want to do that. https://80000hours.org/job-board/ https://80000hours.org/job-board/ They’re also not “random people”. I understand if you prefer to only read arguments from high prestige people rather than evaluating them on their merits, one has limited time after all. The Effective Altruist movement was founded by Toby Ord, an Oxford professor, and the associated Future of Humanity and Global Priorities Institutes are based there. Rob Wiblin, the founder of 80,000 hours has interviewed Rachel Glennerster, head of the UK’s Department for International Development and former director of MIT’s Poverty Action Lab and an effective altruist as well as Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame. You can be confident that they’re not “random people”. > Because if so, most likely there is little coherence between any of these pieces, meaning that people will really just listen to whichever article they agree with. That’s ok. If people are persuaded they should work on important problems there are lots to go round. The world is getting better and better but we have a long way to go before fully automated space communism. > Also, lot of this advice in particular, sucks: "Reverse engineer the paths of famous people" - too bad these paths often start very young due to privilege and wealth, and also have huge amounts of luck involved. But they don’t always. Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Richard Branson did not grow up rich. There are in fact lessons in “You can start a business” or “Computer Science is a great area to study if you want to make enormous piles of money.” > The two things you can't really control in this world: how rich your parents are, and how lucky you are. How lucky you are is not entirely in your control but you can certainly influence it. Do more things, meet more people, work on hard problems; those are possible for a great many people and if you do them you will come across more opportunities. More generally “The harder I work the luckier I get.” as Samuel Goldwyn said. https://lifehacker.com/the-harder-i-work-the-luckier-i-get-5809636 https://lifehacker.com/the-harder-i-work-the-luckier-i-get-5... > "Work to solve problems that aren't popular" - his/her advice is, work on an un-important problem because no one cares about it, so at least you'll make big contributions. But, ummm, no one will care. This goes common advice, which is to seek leverage in your role - that is, big effects through small contributions. If you want to do good rather than gain plaudits working on neglected problems is great advice. Climate change has UN panels and mass demonstrations, detecting and reflecting potential asteroid impacts has the next best thing to nothing. If you work on the latter problem the chances of you making a big marginal impact are a great deal higher. More research money and researcher time goes to breast cancer than to curing ageing. The world has insane priorities and it’s entirely possible to make a big impact by working in a field that’s neglected.

autokad 7y ago

> "Reverse engineer the paths of famous people" would have been better written as successful people, or people in positions you want to be in. I find reverse engineering how people got to where they are quite useful, and with linkedin its free. I wanted a certain position in 5 years, so I went to linkedin and looked at people who were there now, and I found all of them had at least a masters degree. I got extremely motivated, studied day and night for years and got there. oddly enough, it really did take me exactly 5 years. I thought I would have been able to get their sooner with some optimization, but I am very happy with the results. I disagree strongly with "Avoid spending time to earn money". when we are young, that is exactly the most crucial time to be investing our money and spending less. had I contributed 18k~ to my retirement instead of putting in up to the match rate, I don't think my standard of living would have dropped substantially but I could retire 10 years sooner.