How to build a career that actually changes the world

More and more people want to make a real-world difference with their career. Very few of them do. Why are careers in consultancy or finance still so much more mainstream than careers tackling the world's biggest problems?

In this episode, we talk with Jan-Willem van Putten, co-founder of the School for Moral Ambition, an organization that is building clear pathways for people who want to do work that actually changes the world.

We discuss:

• The three main bottlenecks stopping talented people from doing high-impact work
• How to find important yet neglected causes to work on, and the School for Moral Ambition top picks
• Why movements that want to change the world often fail, and what effective advocates do differently
• How to figure out which problems your specific background and skills are best placed to solve
• The real struggles of leaving a prestigious career behind, from lifestyle creep to peer support, and what makes people say it was worth it

Timestamps:

0:00 Cold open

2:12 From thesis on talent waste to joining consultancy: Jan-Willem's journey

4:29 Why did you step away from management consulting?

6:35 Focusing on impact vs. status: can you persuade people?

8:40 What is the School for Moral Ambition?

11:58 Is there now a real field for impact-driven careers?

12:58 Cause areas: food transition and tobacco control

17:10 How to prioritize problems to work on: the Triple-S framework

21:11 Next cause areas: tax fairness and democracy

23:00 What does the fellowship journey look like?

25:06 The profile of an ambitious idealist: startup drive meets activist values

27:43 Noble losers: why social movements fail

30:56 Is moral ambition only for the privileged?

36:04 How to cultivate a higher level of ambition in society

40:31 Feeling hopeless about big problems? New tools change the game

42:19 What holds people back from making the leap to meaningful work

46:12 What do fellows find most rewarding?

47:32 What does success look like in 10 years?

51:25 Where to start if you want to shift to a career that makes a difference

55:28 Best advice ever received: the case for taking action

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts

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