Don’t Follow Your Passion
Short and sweet graduation speech from Ben Horowitz, former CEO of Loudcloud/Opsware (bought by hp) and now general partner at venture firm Andreesen-Horowitz. The succinct yet effective speech is worth watching in full, but here are the key takeaways:
Don’t listen to your friends, or, Think for yourself. Everyone wants to be liked and the easiest way to be liked is to tell people what they want to hear, and what everyone wants to hear is what they already believe to be true. The last thing they want to hear is an original idea that contradicts their belief system. But when you think for yourself, and you happen to be right in what you believe to be true (that very few other people do), that is what creates real value in the world.
Don’t follow your passion, the world is not going to hell in a hand basket, and the class of 20__ is not required to save it. Passions are hard to prioritize. Which passion is it? On the other hand, what are you good at? Also, what you’re passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you’re passionate about at 41. Following your passion is very me-centered.
What you take out from the world is much less important than what you put into the world. So, follow your contribution. Find the thing you’re great at. Put that into the world. Contribute to others. Help the world be better. That is the thing to follow.
It’s not about the unprecendented challenges, but the unprecedented opportunities. If you put your contribution into the world, if you think for yourself, you will be the greatest generation, because in 50 to 100 years from now, you will be known as the generation that unlocks human potential.
ps. Ben Horowitz is also the author of a fantastic biographical management book The Hard Thing About Hard Things, an extremely honest take on building and running a huge technology business as he learned from his tenure as an entrepreneur.