Benjamin Todd

80000-hours

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80,000 Hours

A ridiculously in-depth guide about how to find that perfect career for you.

DR ALI ABDAAL, author of Feel-Good Productivity

This career guide is among the most thoughtful and grounded I’ve seen.

PROFESSOR CAL NEWPORT, author of Deep Work

This incredible group is helping people have a greater social impact with their careers.

SUE DESMOND-HELLMANN, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Based on evidence and good sense, not platitudes.

PROFESSOR STEVEN PINKER, author of Enlightenment Now

If you're worried about wasting your life, read this book . . . It's the most careful and honest guide I know to choosing a career that actually makes a difference. I wish I had it when I was young!

The most informative book you can read if you’re stuck trying to make one of life’s most important decisions. If this had been published a decade earlier, it’d have saved me many restless nights.

HANNAH RITCHIE, author of Not the End of the World

The Make-Believe

Tangled Webs

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Fight or Flight (Book 21)

Israel: What Went Wrong?

How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good

A ridiculously in-depth guide to finding a fulfilling and impactful career in an age of AI. 
 
You have about 80,000 hours in your career: 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 40 years. This means your choice of career is the most important decision you’ll ever make. 
 
Choose well, and you can have a more rewarding, interesting life, and also help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. Choose poorly, and you could waste decades. 
 
So what should you do? Most advice is based on no research, instead offering (misleading) platitudes like ‘follow your passion’. It’s surprisingly out of date, focusing on traditional paths rather than those most likely to thrive in an age of AI. And if you want to help others, the advice is even more simplistic: telling you to choose careers like nurse or doctor, when there are paths in which almost anyone can save more lives. In fact, some careers have hundreds of times more impact than others, but most of us have no idea which ones. 
 
Benjamin Todd is the founder of 80,000 Hours, a non-profit that’s spent over ten years researching how to have a meaningful and impactful career. Here he introduces a tried-and-tested toolkit framework that has already led thousands of people to change their path. It covers: 
 
 
- What really makes for a dream job, and why finding it probably doesn’t involve ‘following your passion’. 
 
- How to identify which global problems are most pressing, and why they might involve AI as much as climate change. 
 
- Which roles are likely to be automated, and how to ensure yours isn’t among them. 
 
It’s also full of practical tips and tools. You’ll come away with a plan to use your 80,000 hours in a way that’s rewarding and fulfils your potential to make a difference.

Benjamin Todd is the founder and president of 80,000 Hours. Dissatisfied with the career advice he received at university, he began researching the guidance he wished he’d had. Over the next ten years, he grew 80,000 Hours from a student society in Oxford into a non-profit with millions of readers that’s been covered in the Financial Times, Guardian, Wall Street Journal and BBC News. Today the organisation has over 50 staff, and has led thousands to change career path, including people who have helped launch the field of AI safety, taken key roles preventing the next pandemic, and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to charity. Benjamin holds a Master’s degree in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford, and speaks Chinese, badly.

80,000 Hours

How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good

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A ridiculously in-depth guide about how to find that perfect career for you.

This career guide is among the most thoughtful and grounded I’ve seen.

This incredible group is helping people have a greater social impact with their careers.

Every college grad should read this.

Based on evidence and good sense, not platitudes.

If you're worried about wasting your life, read this book . . . It's the most careful and honest guide I know to choosing a career that actually makes a difference. I wish I had it when I was young!

The most informative book you can read if you’re stuck trying to make one of life’s most important decisions. If this had been published a decade earlier, it’d have saved me many restless nights.

About Benjamin Todd

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