komponisto comments on Initial Thoughts on Personally Finding a High-Impact Career - Less Wrong

10 Post author: peter_hurford 19 June 2013 07:10PM

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Comment author: komponisto 20 June 2013 01:10:44AM *  3 points [-]

Well, it's not like there's some future point at which you'll receive a certificate authorizing you to create your own career. On the contrary, it will always seem like a "weird" thing to do.

The younger you are, the less reason you have to be conservative and the better an idea it is to take risks that may result in large payoffs.

(It's actually not really a question of chronological age but rather of interpersonal obligations and embeddedness in social networks and relationships [having a spouse, children etc.], which tend to be lower in youth. But even [typically older] people who have such ties don't give enough consideration to doing "weird" things, in my opinion.)

Comment author: peter_hurford 20 June 2013 03:15:06AM 1 point [-]

Well, it's not like there's some future point at which you'll receive a certificate authorizing you to create your own career. On the contrary, it will always seem like a "weird" thing to do.

I'd want to pick up some experience and start-up income first.

A lot of the people who made their own careers (that I know of) didn't do it for their first career. GiveWell was made only after working for a hedge fund, etc.

I also have the "no good ideas" problem.

Comment author: lincolnquirk 20 June 2013 04:44:29AM 2 points [-]

How long have you spent trying to solve the "no good ideas" problem?

It seems like the value of information here is ridiculously high. If you can think of even one good idea which enables you to start a career that you would love and that would allow you to make a huge impact on the world, certainly you could justify spending a whole year of your life just finding that one idea. But most people who make this statement can probably not report spending even a single hour applying their full effort to coming up with that idea.

Comment author: ChristianKl 21 June 2013 01:31:52PM *  6 points [-]

I think most people who have a good career that they start based one one great idea went through dozens of good ideas in their mind before getting one great idea.

I don't think it's a good idea to try to convince someone who thinks he has no good ideas to go down that route if he's more comfortable taking an established path.

Entrepreneurs aren't made by being encouraged to think up an idea for a startup in an hour.