80,000 Hours Podcast24 Huhti 2025

Serendipity, weird bets, & cold emails that actually work: Career advice from 16 former guests

How do you navigate a career path when the future of work is uncertain? How important is mentorship versus immediate impact? Is it better to focus on your strengths or on the world’s most pressing problems? Should you specialise deeply or develop a unique combination of skills?

From embracing failure to finding unlikely allies, we bring you 16 diverse perspectives from past guests who’ve found unconventional paths to impact and helped others do the same.

Links to learn more and full transcript.

Chapters:

Cold open (00:00:00)
Luisa's intro (00:01:04)
Holden Karnofsky on just kicking ass at whatever (00:02:53)
Jeff Sebo on what improv comedy can teach us about doing good in the world (00:12:23)
Dean Spears on being open to randomness and serendipity (00:19:26)
Michael Webb on how to think about career planning given the rapid developments in AI (00:21:17)
Michelle Hutchinson on finding what motivates you and reaching out to people for help (00:41:10)
Benjamin Todd on figuring out if a career path is a good fit for you (00:46:03)
Chris Olah on the value of unusual combinations of skills (00:50:23)
Holden Karnofsky on deciding which weird ideas are worth betting on (00:58:03)
Karen Levy on travelling to learn about yourself (01:03:10)
Leah Garcés on finding common ground with unlikely allies (01:06:53)
Spencer Greenberg on recognising toxic people who could derail your career and life (01:13:34)
Holden Karnofsky on the many jobs that can help with AI (01:23:13)
Danny Hernandez on using world events to trigger you to work on something else (01:30:46)
Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on exploring and pivoting in careers (01:33:07)
Benjamin Todd on making tough career decisions (01:38:36)
Hannah Ritchie on being selective when following others’ advice (01:44:22)
Alex Lawsen on getting good mentorship (01:47:25)
Chris Olah on cold emailing that actually works (01:54:49)
Pardis Sabeti on prioritising physical health to do your best work (01:58:34)
Chris Olah on developing good taste and technique as a researcher (02:04:39)
Benjamin Todd on why it’s so important to apply to loads of jobs (02:09:52)
Varsha Venugopal on embracing uncomfortable situations and celebrating failures (02:14:25)
Luisa's outro (02:17:43)

Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Content editing: Katy Moore and Milo McGuire
Transcriptions and web: Katy Moore

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(359)

How to get into AI safety in 3 months (article reading by career advisor Matt Beard)

The AI safety field has grown by about 30x in the last eight years. Yet it is still in need of more people. Many want to help, but don’t know where to start. As an advisor at 80,000 Hours, Matt Beard ...

15 Loka 18min

OpenAI Security: Controlling Models is Now ‘Hell’ (AI Explained cross-post)

This is an (unpaid) cross-post of a video from the podcast 'AI Explained', which Rob Wiblin thought you might be interested in.You can find the original on YouTube here. If you like it and want more s...

9 Loka 40min

In 2023 Ajeya Cotra already knew what was coming (classic episode)

We're rereleasing some of older episodes that seem more relevant than ever with new rogue AI incidents now seemingly announced every day. Ajeya was one of three independent investigators into the Hugg...

8 Loka 2h 46min

19 Astra and 'Hugging Face' details that reveal what's coming next | Rob Wiblin

OpenAI’s rogue agent swarm was eventually caught hacking Hugging Face for a simple reason: it wasn’t trying to hide from us at all. What could a swarm that wants to stay hidden get away with?Host Rob ...

2 Loka 20min

The case for giving AI (some) legal rights | Simon Goldstein

It sounds like the worst idea in the world: pay AIs, let them own property, give them rights. But AI ethics and safety researcher Simon Goldstein thinks it might actually be the best way to keep human...

1 Loka 1h 53min

Will AI take power — or will humans use it to take power first? With Katja Grace and Tom Davidson

In our first-ever debate, we asked two leading AI risk researchers which catastrophe we should fear most: misaligned AI seizing control from humans, or a small group of humans using AI to seize power....

29 Syys 1h 28min

How we get from AI cyberattacks to human extinction

You’ve seen the headlines: AI could kill us all. Think it sounds ridiculous? So did host Luisa Rodriguez, until she tried to pick apart the arguments. She starts with the motive: why would AI ‘want’ t...

24 Syys 27min

#254 – Max Nadeau on why ambitious people should start AI safety nonprofits

There are millions available for anyone who can launch a successful nonprofit AI safety startup. The hard part, it turns out, is finding people to take the money. Coefficient Giving has drawn up a lis...

17 Syys 1h 3min