What Uber's CEO Wants Young People to Know

Nugget by Dara Khosrowshahi (CEO of Uber)

Hi friend!

I was listening to an episode of the Acquired Podcast (while eating some nice ecuadorian food), where the hosts talked with Dara Khosrowshahi, who is the current CEO of Uber.

During the interview, Ben Gilbert (one of the hosts) asked Dara what advice he would give to young people.

And I think Dara’s answer was incredible.

I immediately stopped eating (that’s the only bad part of all this) and started to think deeply about that idea and its implications.

I transcribed the nugget and in today’s letter I’m sharing it with you!

👤 Doers

💡Nugget

🟠 Dara Khosrowshahi:

I always tell people that the most common mistake that I see in young people is that they overplan their career.

Like… “I want to do X” or “I want to be Vice President” or “I want to make so much money by a certain time”.

And when you overplan your career, there's this human bias — which is to look for signal that agrees with the plan that you have and ignore everything else that doesn't agree with it.

Here Dara is talking about the Confirmation Bias. We have a tendency to have sort of a "vision tunnel", where we (almost) only pay attention to the things that are strictly relevant to our current plan. Therefore, we miss out on good opportunities just because they lay outside the domain of our initial plan...

On top of the Confirmation Bias, I can also see how the Commitment and Consistency Bias would play a significant role. We have a natural tendency to be consistent with adopted ideas, actions and commitments. Therefore, when we commit to a goal (in this case, to a specific career path), we trigger a tendency to be consistent with it, and therefore we will ignore things that would make us inconsistent with that goal. As you can see, this bias puts us too in a sort of tunnel vision or straitjacket thinking!

This is why people say that if you only focus on one thing, the universe will "conspire" to help you achieve that thing. But really all that is going on is that you are triggering these strong human biases, which will definitely help you achieve that thing, but then again at the risk of being blind to anything else that seems unrelated! Personally, I like (and follow) this advice but I also try to keep an eye on unrelated things that are interesting to me! At the end of the day, curiosity is always the best guide — as Paul Graham says.

So, my advice for young people is: don't overplan.

You never know what opportunities are going to come up.

I planned to stay at Allen & Company my whole life. It was my place.

But, being open to possibilities, being open to opportunities… and then when you get that opportunity… going all in!

[So] don’t hedge. If you're going to be in something, go all in.

[Zoya Akhtar]: Do you usually have a plan B?

[Jeff Bezos]: I don't have plan B’s. I actually don't like plan B's. I find plan B's defocus you from plan A. Plan B should always be: “make plan A work.”

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start."
- Charles Bukowski

And do what's required of you, and then like 50% more! Like… blow people away!

"The best way to get what you want is to deserve it." 
- Charlie Munger

And then, you know, tomorrow maybe something else comes up, and you'll get there, but while you're in, you go all in. But at the same time, keep your eyes open, because you never know.

Are you building an exciting project, product, service, or newsletter?

If yes, you might want to share it with us! (by sponsoring the newsletter)

We are a fast-growing community of more than 14,000 life-long learners. And just in the last month, over 1,000 new members have joined!

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✍️ New Essay

I recently co-authored (with Brian David Crane) a new essay in which we explored the reasons for why most people prioritize winning arguments over winning in life.

Although it’s clearly evident that we should try to win in life (rather than on words), I identified five reasons (grounded in psychology literature and wisdom from giants) for why we frequently end up doing the exact opposite!

If you are curious, click here to read the essay!

💥 Stuff I Loved

Talk you soon!

Julio :)