Alex Lawsen on avoiding 10 mistakes people make when pursuing a high-impact career

80k After Hours

In this episode of 80k After Hours, Luisa Rodriguez and Alex Lawsen discuss common mistakes people make when trying to do good with their careers, and advice on how to avoid them.

Links to learn more, highlights and full transcript.

They cover:

• Taking 80,000 Hours’ rankings too seriously
• Not trying hard enough to fail
• Feeling like you need to optimise for having the most impact *now*
• Feeling like you need to work directly on AI immediately
• Not taking a role because you think you’ll be replaceable
• Constantly considering other career options
• Overthinking or over-optimising career choices
• Being unwilling to think things through for yourself
• Ignoring conventional career wisdom
• Doing community work even if you’re not suited to it

Who this episode is for:

• People who want to pursue a high-impact career
• People wondering how much AI progress should change their plans
• People who take 80,000 Hours’ career advice seriously

Who this episode isn’t for:

• People not taking 80k's career advice seriously enough
• People who've never made any career mistakes
• People who don't want to hear Alex say "I said a bunch of stuff, maybe some of it's true" every time he's on the podcast

Get this episode by subscribing to our more experimental podcast on the world’s most pressing problems and how to solve them: type 80k After Hours into your podcasting app.

Producer and editor: Keiran Harris
Audio Engineering Lead: Ben Cordell
Technical editing: Milo McGuire and Dominic Armstrong
Additional content editing: Luisa Rodriguez and Katy Moore
Transcriptions: Katy Moore