I read and interview with Marc Andreessen and Noah Smith. They discuss different things, like the US vs China competition, COVID and software in general.
What I found interesting is the last section, which is saying to not follow your passion for professional work. This part of the interview:
Don’t follow your passion. Seriously. Don’t follow your passion. Your passion is likely more dumb and useless than anything else. Your passion should be your hobby, not your work. Do it in your spare time.
Instead, at work, seek to contribute. Find the hottest, most vibrant part of the economy you can and figure out how you can contribute best and most. Make yourself of value to the people around you, to your customers and coworkers, and try to increase that value every day.
It can sometimes feel that all the exciting things have already happened, that the frontier is closed, that we’re at the end of technological history and there’s nothing left to do but maintain what already exists. This is just a failure of imagination. In fact, the opposite is true. We’re surrounding by rotting incumbents that will all need to be replaced by new technologies. Let’s get on it.
I find this refreshing from the usual 'follow your passion/dreams' advice. Just try to provide the most value to others, maybe that makes the most sense professionally.
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