How Does 80,000 Hours Help Find A Fulfilling Career?

Before we submitted our college applications, the popular girl in our class, the billionaire’s daughter, suddenly said she could get all of us into Harvard or Yale. “My parents donated several buildings to those schools. Getting you all admitted is nothing.” Most of my classmates’ college entrance exam scores were still a long way from those schools, but they believed her. They gave up submitting their own applications and counted on her to pull strings so they could get into college. In my last life, I realized her promise was unreliable. I immediately urged them not to give up on their applications, to keep a backup plan, and I called their parents one by one. But that infuriated the popular girl. She mocked me for being poor and said I did not understand how the upper class worked. She claimed I had ruined everyone’s future. My boyfriend also snapped at me for being jealous. “You’re just jealous that Lissy’s family is rich. You can’t stand the thought of all of us going to Harvard or Yale. So what if you have good grades? You could work your whole life and still never catch up to what her family built over three generations.” For the sake of our three years as classmates, I did not argue with them. But before the deadline, when I found out they still had not submitted their applications, I called the police and exposed the popular girl’s fake identity. The popular girl was condemned by everyone. In despair, she jumped into a river and killed herself. My classmates all said she deserved it and thanked me for saving their futures. But at our class farewell dinner, my boyfriend poisoned my drink, and the entire class watched coldly as I writhed in pain. “At worst, we would have lost our chance at college. Lissy lost her life!” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day the popular girl claimed she could pull strings for us.

Our place was hit by an earthquake. I was crushed by a slab of stone, but my wife, leader of the rescue squad, abandoned me in favor of her true love. She said, "You're a soldier. You can live with a little injury. Felix can't. He's always been weak, and he needs me." I was saved, eventually, and I wanted to leave my wife. I agreed to the chip research that would station me in one of the National Science Foundation's bases deep in the mountains. My leader was elated about my agreeing to this research. He grasped my hand tightly. "Marvelous. With you in our team, Jonathan, this research won't fail! But… you'll be gone for six whole years. Are you sure your partner's fine with it?" I nodded. "She will be. I'm serving the nation here. She'll understand." The leader patted my shoulder. "Good to know. The clock is ticking, so you'll only have one month to say your goodbyes. That enough for you?" I smiled. "More than enough."

The HR manager slid a severance agreement across the table and said coldly, "You're fired." I froze. "Why?" Just one week ago, my boss had praised me in the company meeting and called me one of the team's most valuable people. The HR manager shrugged. "Ms. Lyttle, you're already 35. You don't have the energy of younger employees anymore, and you're not what you used to be. You no longer fit the company's future." I joined this company when I was 29. Over the past six years, I wrote countless lines of code and worked through more sleepless nights than I could remember. Every time the company faced a major system failure, I led the emergency response and saved it from catastrophic losses. And now they were telling me I was too old and too slow. I laughed in disbelief. "So you've already copied all my experience and skills into an AI, haven't you?" The HR manager paused for a moment before answering confidently, "AI never gets tired, never takes time off, and never asks for a raise. Once the company has an employee like that, why would we keep you?" I looked at her. "Are you sure the AI has learned everything I know?" She smiled. "Absolutely." The moment I heard that, I finally relaxed. Long ago, I had already hidden a trap inside my code to keep my skills from being copied. The moment their AI employee went live, the company would only have three days before everything fell apart.

On the last day before my study-abroad application closed, I was about to give up my full scholarship offer. Then, out of nowhere, I got a call from my future self. "Don't give it up. Click confirm enrollment. Right now." "Harley locked in his own graduate placement three months ago. The only reason he wants you to stay is that Katy needs you to finish her senior thesis for her, and he needs your money every month to live on. "Two weeks after you turn down that offer, the two of them go public with their relationship. "That so-called best friend of yours, Katy? She already betrayed you. She's been sleeping with him." I froze, my finger hovering over the mouse. The voice kept going, speaking faster and faster. "Listen carefully. Once you confirm the offer, take the twenty thousand dollars left in your account and put every cent into the Eklund Growth Fund. It goes public next March. It'll grow eightfold within the year. "Once you're abroad, apply to your advisor's AI lab before your first semester ends. That project gets acquired by Coogle two years from now, and as a core team member, you'll get a share of the payout. "Twenty-two-year-old me, I'm begging you. Stop wasting yourself on people who don't deserve it." The voice cut off. I took a deep breath and moved the cursor to "Confirm Enrollment." The instant I clicked, my mind was made up. I wasn't going to bury my own future for anyone who wasn't worth it.

The day I decided to donate my body to science, my family gathered around my adopted sister, Hailey, celebrating her acceptance into a cutting-edge experimental treatment program. The one with brain cancer was supposed to be me. But Hailey used my husband Zane's position at the hospital to swap her healthy medical records with my terminal diagnosis, stealing the one chance I had to survive. And the worst part? Everyone cheered her on. The pain became too much. I fought to stay present, only to overhear the nurses whispering, "It's a good thing Dr. Zane secured that spot for Hailey. They said she only had three days left." So, in the last 72 hours of my life, I quietly let go of everything. When I gave Hailey the original manuscripts of my novels I had poured my heart and soul into, my father and brother gave me a satisfied smile. When Zane decided to grant Hailey her dying wish by marrying her, he handed me the divorce papers. I signed without a moment's hesitation. He sighed and praised me for finally being "so reasonable." And when I was the one who coaxed our daughter, Olivia, into calling Hailey "Mommy," Olivia gushed that her new mom was the best. "Don't worry," Zane soothed. "We're just keeping it safe for now. Once she's gone, it'll all come back to you." I gave Hailey everything I had, just like they wanted. So why, when they find out this was all Hailey's vicious lie, do they come crying, saying I'm the one they wanted all along?

"Alexia, don't take any of the company's holiday bonus boxes. You're not one of us—there's nothing for you." My manager, Kevin Davis, delivered the notice coldly, as if he were commenting on the weather—routine, impersonal. My hand stilled on the mouse. "The rest of you, come with me. We're heading to the company gala to collect your million-dollar bonuses!" My colleagues filed out in high spirits. I watched their retreating backs and answered with a bitter, "Okay." I was a contract worker. For seven years, I had always been the odd one out in the department. Our ID badges said it all—blue for full-time employees, gray for me. Time off was no different. Full-time employees had weekends; I got one day off a month. As for pay and benefits, they enjoyed meal allowances, housing subsidies, team outings, afternoon snacks, holiday gifts, year-end bonuses… I received a fixed salary of three thousand dollars a month. I sat down, opened my computer, and returned to the candlestick charts of my stocks. They didn't know that I was the company's largest anonymous individual shareholder. And they certainly didn't know that tonight, at the company gala, I would step onto the stage as the new Chairman—and my very first proposal would be to lay off their entire department.