Making Your 80,000 Hours Count (with Benjamin Todd)
6/1/20261 hr 7 min
If you want to change the world, how you spend your 80,000 working hours may be the most important decision you can make. Benjamin Todd, founder of 80,000 Hours, joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to dismantle the career advice you've been fed since childhood. "Follow your passion" turns out to be a trap. Chasing a big paycheck barely moves the happiness needle. And being a doctor has a smaller impact than you might think, says Todd. Todd and Roberts wrestle with the real ingredients of a fulfilling career--engaging work, supportive colleagues, meaningful problems--while debating whether Jeff Bezos has lived a worthy life and why most people won't part with 10% of their income to save lives abroad. Along the way, you'll meet unsung heroes like David Nalin, whose solution to dehydration saves millions of children's lives.
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First 90 secondsRuss Roberts· Host0:00
[upbeat music] Welcome to EconTalk, conversations for the curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links to other information related to today's conversation. You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to two thousand and six. Our email address is mail@econtalk.org. We'd love to hear from you. [upbeat music] Today is May sixth, twenty twenty-six, and my guest is Benjamin Todd. He is the founder of Eighty Thousand Hours, a nonprofit that helps people find careers that effectively tackle the world's most pressing problems, and he is the author of the book, Eighty Thousand Hours: How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good, which is our subject for today. Ben, welcome to EconTalk.
Benjamin Todd· Guest1:00
Hi. Thanks for having me. Um, I've listened to many of your episodes for well over ten years, so it's an honor to be here.
Russ Roberts· Host1:09
Oh, many thanks. Let's start with the title. Uh, why is it called... Why is your organization called Eighty Thousand Hours, and why is the book called Eighty Thousand Hours?
Benjamin Todd· Guest1:18
Eighty thousand hours is the length of a typical career, so that's forty hours a week for fifty weeks a year for forty years, and the idea of the name