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I recognize that this is largely a tech forum, but I find it interesting that you choose being a founder or CEO of Google as your benchmarks as opposed to walki

I recognize that this is largely a tech forum, but I find it interesting that you choose being a founder or CEO of Google as your benchmarks as opposed to walking on the moon, curing cancer, or something else. Not a critique, just an observation.

mjg59 5y ago
Having spent time in biology, being CEO of Google is a way more realistic goal than curing cancer. As far as the moon, I grew up on Star Trek and the idea of spending my life in space and seeing new things was absolutely what I wanted. But once I found that Earth contained a lot of utterly fascinating people, being able to meet them mattered more to me than spending a shitload of time getting as far away from them as possible to do a fairly small amount of rock collection - I'm going to be exposed to more new ideas staying here than I am up there. But it's a fair point! Our aspirational goals are influenced by what we believe is possible, and that's amazingly contextual. What we're lead to believe is possible changes what we believe should be possible for us, and that changes the standards we set for ourselves.
- goatherders 5y ago
  Well sure. But if one is looking to find "purpose" in life then neither a unicorn nor being ceo of Google does much relative to curing cancer or space exploration. I guess i found it interesting that the suggested "purposes" were so....meager.
  - swores 5y ago
    Considering the huge role that Google plays in many peoples lives and in many other businesses, surely the CEO has a huge potential to do good (or evil). Hell, they could decide to invest shitloads of Google money into cancer research and space exploration. It's not a career path I'm shooting for, but if you made me Google CEO tomorrow I doubt lack of purpose would be an issue.
erwincoumans 5y ago
Walking on the moon (or Mars) likely gets boring very soon. The experiences as a CEO of a large company seem much more interesting, and you get to hire a team of experts working on those cures (or whatever floats your Boaty McBoatface).

mjg59 5y ago

Having spent time in biology, being CEO of Google is a way more realistic goal than curing cancer. As far as the moon, I grew up on Star Trek and the idea of spending my life in space and seeing new things was absolutely what I wanted. But once I found that Earth contained a lot of utterly fascinating people, being able to meet them mattered more to me than spending a shitload of time getting as far away from them as possible to do a fairly small amount of rock collection - I'm going to be exposed to more new ideas staying here than I am up there. But it's a fair point! Our aspirational goals are influenced by what we believe is possible, and that's amazingly contextual. What we're lead to believe is possible changes what we believe should be possible for us, and that changes the standards we set for ourselves.

goatherders 5y ago
Well sure. But if one is looking to find "purpose" in life then neither a unicorn nor being ceo of Google does much relative to curing cancer or space exploration. I guess i found it interesting that the suggested "purposes" were so....meager.
- swores 5y ago
  Considering the huge role that Google plays in many peoples lives and in many other businesses, surely the CEO has a huge potential to do good (or evil). Hell, they could decide to invest shitloads of Google money into cancer research and space exploration. It's not a career path I'm shooting for, but if you made me Google CEO tomorrow I doubt lack of purpose would be an issue.

erwincoumans 5y ago

Walking on the moon (or Mars) likely gets boring very soon. The experiences as a CEO of a large company seem much more interesting, and you get to hire a team of experts working on those cures (or whatever floats your Boaty McBoatface).