80,000 Hours

A ridiculously in-depth guide to finding a fulfilling and impactful career in the age of AI

“This career guide is among the most thoughtful and grounded I’ve seen.”—Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of Slow Productivity

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 one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make.

Choose well, and you can have a more rewarding life, discover new interests, and help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems. Choose poorly, and you could waste decades.

So what should you do? Most modern advice is based on no research, instead offering misleading platitudes like “follow your heart.” It’s surprisingly out-of-date, focusing on traditional paths rather than those most likely to thrive in an age of AI. If you want to help others, you’re often simply told to choose a career in medicine or education, despite the existence of many other paths where you can also save 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 nonprofit that has spent more than ten years researching how to have a meaningful and impactful career that still pays the bills. In this book, he introduces a tried-and-tested toolkit that has already helped thousands of people change their career paths. 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 unregulated 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 fulfills your potential to make a difference.