80,000 Hours is a non-profit that provides research and support to help people switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems.
The Key Ideas page is a summary of the most useful things we’ve learned so far. We start with the big picture and end with practical next steps, covering:
- The ethical and big picture views that inform our advice.
- Some neglected global problems we think are especially pressing to work on.
- Some ideas for career paths that especially help to address those problems.
- A list of career strategy considerations that are useful regardless of what problem you focus on.
- A process for planning your career in light of your strengths and personal priorities.
You’ll probably need at least an hour to read the page in full. If you want to start applying these ideas to your own career, you may find it useful to set aside a weekend to reflect and explore some of the materials we link to.
We know this is a lot of time to invest, but if just one idea we cover helps you significantly increase the impact of your career, it’ll be worth it. A typical career lasts for 80,000 hours, so if you can make your career just 1% better, then in theory it would be worth spending up to 800 hours working out how to do that. Hopefully, we’ll be a lot faster.