Making Your 80,000 Hours Count (with Benjamin Todd)

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 67 minutes

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Summary

If you want to change the world, how you spend your 80,000 working hours may be the most important decision you can make. Benjamin Todd, founder of 80,000 Hours, joins EconTalk's Russ Roberts to dismantle the career advice you've been fed since childhood. "Follow your passion" turns out to be a trap. Chasing a big paycheck barely moves the happiness needle. And being a doctor has a smaller impact than you might think, says Todd. Todd and Roberts wrestle with the real ingredients of a fulfilling career--engaging work, supportive colleagues, meaningful problems--while debating whether Jeff Bezos has lived a worthy life and why most people won't part with 10% of their income to save lives abroad. Along the way, you'll meet unsung heroes like David Nalin, whose solution to dehydration saves millions of children's lives.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.9	I'm your host, Russ Roberts, of Sholem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Go to EconTalk.org, where you can subscribe, comment on this episode, and find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.2	You'll also find our archives with every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.7	Our email address is mail at econTalk.org.
0:30.0	We'd love to hear from you.
0:36.6	Today is May 6, 2026, and my guest is Benjamin Todd. He is the founder of 80,000 hours, a nonprofit that helps people find careers that effectively tackle the world's most pressing problems. And he is the author of the book, 80,000 hoursours, How to Have a Fulfilling Career That Does Good,
0:57.3	which is our subject for today. But welcome to Econ Talk.
1:01.4	Hi, thanks for having me. I've listened to many of your episodes for well over 10 years,
1:07.7	so it's an honor to be here. Oh, many thanks. Let's start with the title.
1:12.4	Why is your organization called 80,000 hours, and why is the book called 80,000 hours?
1:19.7	80,000 hours is the length of a typical career, so that's 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year,
1:26.5	for 40 years. And the idea of the name is,
1:30.7	this is the biggest decision you'll ever make, especially from the perspective of your impact
1:36.5	on the world. And I'm going to start with the, this is the hardest question I'm going to ask
1:42.5	probably in the whole conversation.
1:45.3	Why should I care?
1:47.6	It's a tough question.
1:49.0	It may be self-evident to many people, maybe to most people, but I'm going to challenge you.
1:54.8	Why should we, what do we, shouldn't I just try to make as much money as possible, be happy?
1:59.3	What's wrong with that?
2:02.3	Well, to some degree, it's just true that many people do care.
	...

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