a16z co-founder Ben Horowitz: “Don’t follow your passion”

Ben gives this advice to the Columbia University class of 2015:

“Don’t follow your passion. Now I know you’re probably thinking: ‘That’s a really dumb idea because if you poll 1,000 people who are successful, they’ll all say they love what they do. And so the broad conclusion of the world is that if you do what you love, then you’ll be successful.’ But we’re engineers, so we know that might be true. It also might be the case that if you’re successful, you love what you do — you just love being successful, everybody loves you, it’s awesome. So which one is it?”

He continues:

“The first tricky thing about passions is they’re hard to prioritize. Are you more passionate about math or engineering? Are you more passionate about history or literature? Are you more passionate about video games or K-pop? These are tough decisions. How do you even know? On the other hand, what are you good at? Are you better at math or writing? That’s a much easier thing to figure out.

The second thing that’s tricky if you’re going forward in time with this ‘follow your passion’ idea is that what you’re passionate about at 21 is not necessarily what you’re going to be passionate about at 40. Now this is true for boyfriends, as well as career choices.

The third issue with following your passion is that you’re not necessarily good at your passion. Has anybody ever watched American Idol? So you know what I’m talking about. Just because you love singing doesn’t mean you should be a professional singer.

And then finally, and most importantly, following your passion is a very ‘me-centered’ view of the world. And when you go through life, what you’ll find is that what you take out of the world — money, cars, stuff, accolades — is much less important than what you put into the world. And so my recommendation would be to follow your contribution. Find the thing that you’re great at, put that into the world, contribute to others, help the world be better. That is the thing to follow.”

Full video: a16z “Don't Follow Your Passion“ (May 2015)