Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making - The New York Times bestseller

When you’re in your thirties and forties, the window begins to close for most people. Your decisions can no longer be entirely your own. That’s okay, too—great even—but it’s different. The people who depend on you will shape and influence your choices. Even if you don’t have a family to support, you’ll still accumulate just a little more each year—

There’s often an assumption that if you find the right job when you’re young, you can guarantee some level of success. That your first job out of college connects in a straight line to your second and your third, that at each stage of your career you’ll use your inevitable wins to propel yourself upward.

That combination of a real problem, the right timing, and innovative technology allowed Uber to shift the paradigm—to create something that traditional cab companies couldn’t even dream of, never mind compete with.

I’ll notice people who come with something interesting to share. Something smart. Especially if they keep coming. If they sent me something cool last week and something cool this week and they keep bringing fascinating news or tech or ideas and they’re persistent, then I’ll start to recognize them. I’ll start to remember them, and respond.

But if you can, try to get into a small company. The sweet spot is a business of 30–100 people building something worth building, with a few rock stars you can learn from even if you aren’t working with them every day.

If you’re going to throw your time, energy, and youth at a company, try to join one that’s not just making a better mousetrap. Find a business that’s starting a revolution.

So when you’re looking at the array of potential careers before you, the correct place to start is this: “What do I want to learn?”

My life has swung wildly between success and failure, incredible career highs immediately followed by bitter disappointment. And with each failure I chose to start from scratch, take all that I’d learned and do something completely new, become someone completely new.

The best way to find a job you’ll love and a career that will eventually make you successful is to follow what you’re naturally interested in, then take risks when choosing where to work. Follow your curiosity rather than a business school playbook about how to make money. Assume that for much of your twenties your choices will not work out and the