80,000 Hours

Evidence-based advice we've found on how to be successful in a job

A guide to becoming more successful through greater productivity, faster learning, and better habits, based on what we've found actually works over 15+ years of research.

Career advice I wish I’d been given when I was young

Seventeen recommendations from someone we think had a big impact with their career.

All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

We've read a lot of job-hunting advice. Most of it is useless. Here's what we've found actually works — starting with why job boards are a last resort.

Politics is bad because we use an 18th century voting system

While it might not seem sexy, this single change could transform politics.

Ways people trying to do good accidentally do harm instead and how to avoid them

Even when you try to do good, you can end up doing accidental harm. But there are ways you can minimise the risks.

If you’re unsure whether to quit your job or break up, you probably should

If we actually read the paper we can learn much more than was reported.

Startup employees don't earn more

We estimate typical startup salaries and equity compensation, and find early-employees don't earn more than large company employees.

Getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world

A Google Brain engineer’s guide to entering AI

Technical AI safety is a multifaceted area of research, with many sub-questions in areas such as reward learning, robustness, and interpretability. These will all need to be answered in order to make sure AI development will go well for humanity as systems become more and more powerful. Not all of these questions are…

Evidence on how to find the right career

Career tests and "going with your gut" don’t work. We analysed all the research on how to find the right career to show you what does.

How much do hedge fund traders earn?

Hedge fund trading may be the highest paying job in the world, so to learn more, we spoke with a former manager at one of the world’s leading hedge funds.

What’s good career advice you wouldn’t want to have your name on?

Anonymous career advice from people whose work we respect.

Research questions that could have a big social impact, organised by discipline

Some ideas for socially valuable research topics across 19 fields.

Having a successful career with depression, anxiety and imposter syndrome

The first half of this conversation is a searingly honest account of...

What’s the best way to spend $20K to help the common good?

I recently came across the following question posted by Paul Buchheit (the founder of Gmail): Assume that I'm going to get rid of $20,000 and my only concern is the "common good". Which of these is the best use of the money: give it to the Gates foundation, buy a hybrid car, invest it in a promising startup, invest it…

A non-profit that figured out how to massively cut suicide rates in Sri Lanka

The cheapest way to save lives may be tackling a means of suicide you've never even heard of.

Cal Newport on an industrial revolution for office work

How much do Y Combinator founders earn?

Image source Introduction and summary We're interested in estimating how much tech entrepreneurs earn, since it's one of our top recommended careers, partly because of its earnings. Big earners can create a lot of economic value and can sometimes become big donors. We wanted to find out: if you get into Y Combinator…

Which job skills are most employable?

Like many others, we’ve promoted the idea of learning STEM skills. Is that the wrong advice?

Consider applying for grad school

9 reasons to apply to grad school right now, and 8 reasons not to.

The world’s biggest problems and why they’re not what first comes to mind

We started with global health, then pandemics. Now we focus on AI risk. How our views changed and what problems we'd recommend you work on today.