Good advice for you is not good advice for me
Why most career advice is bad and how you can better filter it
I remember talking to a successful tech entrepreneur friend in 2018 when I mentioned I was thinking about getting an MBA. He said “what are you an idiot? That’s a stupid idea.” He told me to just join a startup instead and that an MBA is a huge waste of money.
I remember it really made me second guess myself. I really respected this person and here he was telling me how stupid my plan was. His argument is also extremely common on Tech Twitter where MBAs are derided.
There’s definitely some truth to the argument that an MBA can sometimes be a waste and I didn’t end up getting one after all because I landed a job at Uber shortly after and never really considered it again.1 But this piece is not actually about whether you should or should not get an MBA.
Instead, it’s about why most career advice, like that which my friend gave me, is at best misleading and at worst downright harmful. That’s because most advice is too generic, not tailored to the person receiving it, and often just “here’s what worked for me.”
Whether advice is good or not is conditional on the receiver. Good advice to one person is often bad advice to another because each person is different in what they are good at and what they are looking for in life. In this case, the advice my friend was giving was good advice for people like him, who I could never fathom getting an MBA) but not for people like me who it could be a better fit for.
Most advice is “here’s what worked for me”
Most people giving advice on the internet are not thinking much about who it’s good for. Instead, it’s often some variation of “here’s what worked for me”2 which not only assumes the advice receiver is similar to the advice giver but totally ignores the unique circumstances led to the advice giver’s path.
“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat!” is advice former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gives. I think the core idea definitely makes sense (the company you join often matters more than role), but how many people actually have offers equivalent to joining FB in 2008 in a perfect seat like she did?3 I’ve seen many people tricked by this advice into joining “rocket ships” that weren’t actual rocket ships or not thinking deeply enough about the role they were joining at a company.
One of my favorites in this genre is Reid Hoffman’s advice that “studying philosophy is more important for entrepreneurs than an MBA.” You’d be shocked to find out that instead of an MBA, Reid got… a masters in philosophy! Reid is obviously brilliant (and much more successful than me), but I have to imagine this copy-paste advice from his career is not actually applicable for most entrepreneurs.
People are different. Be true to yourself!
Coming back to MBAs: For some people I know, getting an MBA was a fantastic idea. One person I know used it to pivot into a marketing/GM type role at a CPG company, others used it to get jobs in Big Tech or sometimes startups too. Not everyone was universal in their praise, but on the whole people I know who got MBAs often talk about it as one of the best decisions of their lives. But I also recognize these people are different in disposition (e.g., more risk averse) and goals than a lot of my friends who didn’t get MBAs and from people who tend to criticize them in tech circles.
The point is that for people with a particular set of skills, interests and goals, an MBA is a fantastic idea and for others it’s a horrible one. It may sound banal to say “some people are different in skills and goals”, but I find this notion tends to get collapsed in the overwhelming memetic nature of elite circles. It’s easy to get caught up in whatever path everyone else is taking and be convinced you need to follow the same one, particularly when you are young and impressionable. I have seen many people (myself especially!) fall into the trap of choosing advice meant for other people and not themselves.
Focus on inputs, not outputs
How can you make advice more useful? One framework I like is to get advice for inputs, not outputs.
If you’re thinking about getting an MBA, you shouldn’t ask a former MBA student if they’d recommend getting an MBA (output decision). As we’ve noted, they are the wrong person to opine on that for you, especially if they barely know you. Instead, think of all the inputs that factor into the output decision. For example, if you are getting an MBA to get into private equity, you should ask questions about how the MBA specifically helped that transition. You need to decide the inputs that are important to you and then seek advice on those. Only you can understand what you want, what you’re good at, and what matters to you.
The same goes for giving advice. Be careful if someone is asking you to advise on their output decision and steer them back towards their inputs. “I don’t give advice, I just talk about my experiences and let the person conclude what they want” is something I also heard recently which I liked too.
Advice is a double edged sword. It can help someone immensely, but poorly targeted advice can also hurt. Not only should you learn to filter advice you receive accordingly, but also be mindful of the advice you give too.
Thanks to Kasra and Barr for their helpful feedback.
In hindsight, I still think this was the right decision and I’m quite glad with how everything turned out.
The reverse of this is also common where someone’s advice is “here’s what didn’t work for me” and they assume it won’t work for you too.
She was given this advice by Eric Schmidt, who had a similar once in a lifetime opportunity to join Google as CEO in 2001.