This is Marc Andreessen's guide to career planning, and I've found it exceptionally useful. In particular, he backs off from the narrow "decide what track you want to be on" approach to frame the problem as developing a set of skills that will make you more valuable to any enterprise you choose to be a part of. Then while you do that, watch for the most valuable opportunities to apply those skills.
The other great thing about Marc Andreessen's guide is that it acknowledges the role of risk and opportunity in how your career will shape out. So instead of tracking yourself into a path based on how the world looks today, you stay alert to how the world is changing, and then use the downtime to improve yourself. Despite being a guide for "high-potential people who are not interested in work/life balance", it feels like it puts less pressure on individuals than feeling like there's a set of steps you must hit to be on your chosen track.
Marc Andreessen who according to wikipedia has had a single employee job in his entire adult life, after which he went on to found a string of companies and then became a VC? Why would I want to take their advice on skills that make me more valuable to an enterprise?
I'd 100% take advice from him on founding companies and on investing btw, but advice on how to build your career as an employee seems wildly irrelevant coming from him.
Why would you ever want to be an employee? Pretty much everything about the American system is setup to shaft them.
The advantage of Andreessen's perspective in that blog series is that he thinks of a career as a portfolio of investments, each of which has their own risks and their own upsides, and each of which may unlock future investments. In my experience this has been a far more effective way to manage your career, simply because everything about present-day America is setup to screw people who take one job and work within its strictures.
https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part0.html
This is Marc Andreessen's guide to career planning, and I've found it exceptionally useful. In particular, he backs off from the narrow "decide what track you want to be on" approach to frame the problem as developing a set of skills that will make you more valuable to any enterprise you choose to be a part of. Then while you do that, watch for the most valuable opportunities to apply those skills.
The other great thing about Marc Andreessen's guide is that it acknowledges the role of risk and opportunity in how your career will shape out. So instead of tracking yourself into a path based on how the world looks today, you stay alert to how the world is changing, and then use the downtime to improve yourself. Despite being a guide for "high-potential people who are not interested in work/life balance", it feels like it puts less pressure on individuals than feeling like there's a set of steps you must hit to be on your chosen track.