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Lets finally normalize putting in the 80% that achieves 20% of the output!
Announcing 8,000,000 Hours: Career advice for the rest of us
4 min read ·
I'm so sorry to be the one to break this to you, I have already written an entire book about why this is simply not possible. Have you considered asking people working impactful careers to only spend 800 hours on it?
1 April :)
I think you forgot to add the application link, I would love the opportunity to be advised on how to expand my dog walking career to new lengths!
Thanks Trym. I just added an application link.
TL;DR: We're launching 8,000,000 Hours, a new career guidance organisation for people who want to have an impact but would rather not change what they're doing. Instead of finding the highest-impact career, we help you work longer in your existing one to achieve the same impact at the end of your career.
80,000 Hours estimates that you have roughly 80,000 hours in your career and argues you should spend them on the world's most pressing problems. Central to 80,000 Hours' argument is the observation that in a pair of two randomly picked interventions, the better one would be 100 times more cost-effective than the other.
This is usually presented as an argument for choosing more carefully. But we think there's an equally valid conclusion that everyone has been overlooking:
If the best careers are 100x more impactful than average ones, you can match that impact by simply working 100x as many hours in an average career.
80,000 × 100 = 8,000,000.
Switching to a high-impact career involves significant transition costs. You might need to retrain, relocate, take a pay cut, or make a cringy LinkedIn post.
By contrast, working more hours in your current role requires zero retraining and only modest lifestyle adjustments (not sleeping, ending relationships, abandoning hobbies, etc.).
We've developed a simple framework. For any career decision, ask yourself:
"Could I achieve more impact by simply working crazy hours?"
If the answer is yes — and we believe it almost always is — then the career change is unnecessary.
Some skeptics will point out that 8,000,000 hours is roughly 913 years, which exceeds current human life expectancy. We have three responses:
1. Life expectancy is increasing. Global life expectancy has risen from around 32 years in 1900 to over 73 today. If we simply extrapolate this trend, humans born in the year 2400 will live to approximately 195. If the trend in life expectancy continues exponentially, however, we can expect to live until 844 years old. That already comes close to 913 years.
2. Longevity research is accelerating. Novel biomedical interventions can reduce aging and increase the number of healthy years per life. Some people now believe the first person to live to 1,000 may already have been born. If even modestly true, 8,000,000 career hours is well within reach. We therefore recommend that our members inject poorly researched peptides just in case.
3. You can just work more hours per week. The standard 80,000 Hours calculation assumes 40 hours/week for 50 weeks/year over 40 years. But there are 168 hours in a week. If you work all of them, you only need to sustain this for roughly 913 years — or, if we account for leap years, a highly achievable 912.7.
Unlike 80,000 Hours, we don't think you need to agonise over which problem profile to work on. All careers become high-impact at sufficient volume. Some of our top-recommended paths include:
Q: Is this just "work yourself to death" rebranded?
A: No. Our members are encouraged to die as little as possible. Death is a major source of lost career hours and we are strongly against it.
Q: What if my job is actively harmful?
A: We recommend switching from "actively harmful" to "mildly pointless." The Bullshit Jobs literature suggests this is quite achievable for most knowledge workers without even trying.
Q: Isn't 80,000 Hours' whole point that some interventions are so much better that you should prioritise quality over quantity?
A: Yes, but consider: have they tried quantity?
Q: How do you respond to critics who say this is "obviously a joke"?
A: We'd note that GiveDirectly was also initially seen as too simple to work. Sometimes the best ideas sound absurd at first. Also, sometimes they are absurd. We leave it to the reader to determine which category this falls into.
Q: What's next?
A: We're currently also working on setting up the Centre for a Lot of Normal Philanthropy, which aims to raise 100x more money for average charities.
We're currently seeking funding to support our first cohort of 8,000,000 Hours advisees. Our room for more funding is essentially infinite, as are the working hours of our staff.
If you're interested in a career that's slightly impactful but very, very long, please apply.
Apply now8,000,000 Hours is fiscally sponsored by the Centre for Conditions That Technically Count as Employment. We are not affiliated with 80,000 Hours, who we assume are too busy being effective to notice this post.
Happy April Fools' Day!
I think this is a great initiative, and I'm happy that you're pursuing it. But I think it is particularly impressive how much amazing design work went into this website!