Insights on Life and Career Choices from Anonymous Contributors

It features answers to 23 different questions including “How have you seen talented people fail in their work?” and “What’s one way to be successful you don’t think people talk about enough?”, from anonymous people whose work we admire.

We thought a lot of the responses were really interesting; some were provocative, others just surprising. And as intended, they span a very wide range of opinions.

So we decided to share some highlights here with you podcast subscribers. This is only a sample though, including a few answers from just 10 of those 23 questions.

You can find the rest of the answers at 80000hours.org/anonymous or follow a link here to an individual entry:

1. What's good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?
2. How have you seen talented people fail in their work?
3. What’s the thing people most overrate in their career?
4. If you were at the start of your career again, what would you do differently this time?
5. If you're a talented young person how risk averse should you be?
6. Among people trying to improve the world, what are the bad habits you see most often?
7. What mistakes do people most often make when deciding what work to do?
8. What's one way to be successful you don't think people talk about enough?
9. How honest & candid should high-profile people really be?
10. What’s some underrated general life advice?
11. Should the effective altruism community grow faster or slower? And should it be broader, or narrower?
12. What are the biggest flaws of 80,000 Hours?
13. What are the biggest flaws of the effective altruism community?
14. How should the effective altruism community think about diversity?
15. Are there any myths that you feel obligated to support publicly? And five other questions.

Finally, if you’d like us to produce more or less content like this, please let us know your opinion podcast@80000hours.org.