I advise current and former management consultants on career strategy re: making the world a better place.
Some ideas I’m kicking around:
- Most burnout is a function of working on things that we don’t think actually matter
- Opportunities in neglected global problems are so good that anyone serious about strategic thinking should consider them
- Our gut instincts are useful, but trained on old data (eg: most of us didn’t feel inspired to work on pandemic preparedness before 2020)
- Our best opportunities don’t ask us to change much about ourselves – including our values and core energy drivers.
- Most people hate networking but like making friends. I’m not saying the meaning of life is “working on inspiring projects with inspiring people” but it’s not a bad way to start.
Worth noting
Most advanced AI labs think we’ll hit artificial general intelligence sometime around 2029, and we should probably take them seriously. I think that our healthcare, economic, and diplomatic / peacemaking systems are pretty fragile, and wouldn’t expect a “move fast and break things” approach to go well — or at least, to carry risks the average person wouldn’t be okay with. Forecasting sociotechnical change is really hard, but I tend to favor career plans that can withstand (or help with!) major changes from AI.
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For more, check out my LinkedIn or Google Scholar (where I moonlight as an AI risk researcher.