Like you, at 80,000 Hours we view the relative impact of money vs talent to be specific to particular problems and potentially particular approaches too.
First you need to look for what activities you think are most impactful, and then see what your money can generate vs your time.
First you need to look for what activities you think are most impactful, and then see what your money can generate vs your time.
This statement could be interpreted as suggesting that people should use a two-step process: first, choose a problem based on how pressing it is and then second, decide how to contribute to solving that problem.* That two-step approach would be a bad idea because some people may be able to make a greater impact working on a less pressing problem if they are especially effective at addressing that problem. Because of this, information about how pressing different problems are relative to each other should not be used to choose a single problem; instead, it should be used as background information when comparing careers across problems.
*I doubt that’s what you actually meant since you wrote the linked article that discusses personal fit. But I figured some people might be unfamiliar with that article, so I thought it’d be worthwhile to note the issue.
Yes—the reason you need to look at a bunch of activities rather than just one activity, is that your personal fit, both in general, and between earning vs direct work, could materially reorder them.
Like you, at 80,000 Hours we view the relative impact of money vs talent to be specific to particular problems and potentially particular approaches too.
First you need to look for what activities you think are most impactful, and then see what your money can generate vs your time.
This statement could be interpreted as suggesting that people should use a two-step process: first, choose a problem based on how pressing it is and then second, decide how to contribute to solving that problem.* That two-step approach would be a bad idea because some people may be able to make a greater impact working on a less pressing problem if they are especially effective at addressing that problem. Because of this, information about how pressing different problems are relative to each other should not be used to choose a single problem; instead, it should be used as background information when comparing careers across problems.
*I doubt that’s what you actually meant since you wrote the linked article that discusses personal fit. But I figured some people might be unfamiliar with that article, so I thought it’d be worthwhile to note the issue.
Yes—the reason you need to look at a bunch of activities rather than just one activity, is that your personal fit, both in general, and between earning vs direct work, could materially reorder them.