The career stairs trap

Chamath actually drew me a picture on a whiteboard. He said, the way a lot of people do careers is a set of stairs. You can be boring and stay on these stairs. Just walk up the stairs, and you'll get promoted every two years. And he's like, the much more fun careers are like jumping off cliffs. You jump off this thing, and you do fall for a period of time, but then this thing happens where you climb out. And the picture he drew had this J curve, basically leading you to places that are way beyond where the stairs could ever get you. And to be totally honest, that has been my experience. Taking risks, accepting the terrible fall. And that experience of falling has been more than worth it. Where if you prove to people that you're actually good, if they believe that you are the kind of person that they can use to do lots of things, you can get these opportunities that you are just so deeply unqualified for. You can come out of those companies with skills that no one would ever have reasonably hired you to do.