I've read his entire three part series, even though his "Part 0" disqualifies me, due to my emphasis on work/life balance:
These posts are not appropriate for people for whom work/life balance is a high priority or for whom lifestyle is particularly important — if that's you, there are plenty of existing career planning resources for you already!
That said, a few chestnuts of wisdom.
- Career planning = career limiting. You are much better served by focusing on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.
- When following opportunities, don't think of each opportunity in isolation. Think about them in terms of a career portfolio, a set of personal investments that blend together the returns and the risks. Your career should be a portfolio of your jobs, roles, and opportunities.
- You can't explore opportunities without taking risks – however, by viewing your career as a portfolio, you can do so by blending your returns and risks.
- Your appetite for personal career risk is the same as your investment strategy – the younger you are, with the fewest external obligations (to spouse, partner, children, etc.), the more risks you should take.
- Other things to be considered regarding risk include your personal happiness (miserable where you are versus potential happiness), geography (cost of living, industry center-of-gravity), company size (the correlation of company size to risk), and of course opportunity cost (that is, what is the cost of doing anything, or the cost of doing nothing)..
- There is plenty of advice regarding education, but for me, that horse has left the barn. He advocates a practical undergraduate degree (say a hard science, or business – not liberal arts) and a practical advanced degree (like an MBA).
- He advocates the continuous developing and broadening of your base of skills.
- He suggests being in the top 25% in a couple of areas (public speaking, for example) and using that to maximize your academic credentials.
- He advises skill acquisition in the following five areas – Communication, Management, Sales, Finance, and International [Business].
- When choosing an industry, he suggests entering one where the founders are still alive and actively involved, implying that the company is still young and vital, and still seeking out new opportunities.
- If you are going to enter an old industry, do so on the side of the force of radical change that threatens to up-end the existing order.
- Go to the city where everything is happening, in the company where everything is happening. Be in the center of the action.
- Focus on fast-growing companies where there is the greatest capacity for change.
- Lastly, every job one takes and role one fills is a tactical opportunity and a strategic opportunity.
Links: The Pmarca Guide to Career Planning; Part 0: Introduction, Part 1: Opportunity, Part 2: Skills and Education, and Part 3: Where to Go and Why.
Tags: Marc Andreesen
