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The flawed pursuit of meaning at work

The flawed pursuit of meaning at work

Why searching for meaning in your career is making you miserable & a Deep Dive on Biosecurity

Giammarco Pacifico
August 16, 2023

You should find meaning in your work.

This advice is the single reason why many of us choose universities, internships, jobs and ultimately careers.

I don’t remember the exact time I heard this for the 1st time but it was probably in high school during one of those awkward conversations around “What do you want to study in college?”

Chances are you have heard the same advice countless times too, mostly from people who just lost passion for their jobs.

And I bet nobody ever tried to challenge this advice.

In the end, what would the other side be: “Find something that you hate?”

Today, I’ll show you why this advice is misleading.

Afterall:

What is the meaning of becoming a highly paid CTO and spending all your days reviewing spreadsheets and selling to the board?
What is the meaning of a consultant who works all night on some slides that will never see the light of day?

Searching for meaning will make you miserable

You might think you need to look for a project that you’re passionate about and this revelation will change your life.

Your dream company finally gives you a chance, you join a startup that changes the world, or you win the lottery and spend your life volunteering.

This is not happening.

The reality is that 96% of employees are job hunting in 2023.

Why all this fuss about meaning?

Meaning is deeply attached to identity.

Identity is a label we carry with us all the time and it ends up driving most of our decisions (even if we don’t realize it).

…doctors have to cure people, lawyers have to protect their client’s interests, engineers have to build something and so on.

“What do you do?” is an obvious, yet powerful question.

As humans we seek congruency everywhere, especially in our own story, and we’d rather reject a new opportunity than mess up our narrative.

I decided to become a bioengineer after being extremely fascinated with the work of Miguel Nicolelis about Brain-Computer Interfaces and how we could communicate with monkeys as a gateway to human brains.

Had I fallen in love with the idea of being a bioengineer forever, I’d probably be in a lab writing code while being miserable about my lack of world-changing contribution to the field.

❝

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Albert Einstein

Instead of meaning, look for inertia

We talk about meaning and purpose when we are not actively working.

When we are in the flow, we are fully engaged in what we do and we don’t care about where we are headed.

We let our interests at the moment dictate where to go.

That’s inertia. Following the path of least resistance.

❝

Find work that feels like play.

Naval Ravikant

How to find this?

It means that you are happy to work on something over the weekend, instead of going out. It means that you are thinking about it under the shower.

Once you find it, you’ll rapidly become great at what you do.

And you’ll naturally attract people who are also interested in the same while winning over your competitors (who see it as work).

How to avoid “fake passions”?

Ask yourself “Would I work on this even if I was not making any money?”

“Would I do it even without any approval from authority figures?”

What if you can’t find your passion?

Surround yourself with people who are passionate about something and start working with them.

Success will make you passionate about it.

“Follow your passion” is not coming back

The rise of career portfolios and the abundance of opportunities makes it easier than ever to explore inertia.

If you were born in a small town 50 years ago and your family owned a bakery, chances are you’d become a baker.

Now, you can learn about an opportunity in the other part of the world, connect with someone on Twitter (humm…X) or LinkedIn and change your life in a few weeks.

The beauty is that the same path has different inertia for different people.

And the only way to find out your path of least resistance is by trying different paths before choosing the one you want to pursue.

It’s about exploring many options before climbing the right hill.

The Covid pandemic feels like a distant past.

In reality, new mutations are arising in many parts of the world and our lack of new boosters against it means we’ll not get rid of SARS-CoV-2 for many years to come.

Leaving this challenge to governments and big pharma, let’s explore a field that gained significant attention due to the pandemic:

Biosecurity

Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs) are events caused by biological agents that expose populations to sudden disasters and existential risks.

The risk of information hazards & Dual Use of Research

There is a fine balance between publishing research results in the spirit of openness and withholding information for the risk of potential threads.

Excessive secrecy can be as harmful as oversharing information.

A more subtle information hazard is how this information could be used in the political realm to instigate the masses.

Moreover, overly disclosing information to the broad population without the appropriate scientific filters could lead to overreactions and panic.

This is especially common in the case of Dual Use of Research, where the same results intended for societal benefits could easily be misapplied to harm.

If we add funding and financial interests on top, conflicts of interest are more common than we would hope for. For example, it’s been shown that US officials funded research in the Wuhan Lab, where Covid 19 originated.

Leaked Wuhan security footage

The role of artificial intelligence

2 classes of AI tools pose a risk for biological misuse:

Large Language Models are already able to provide dual-use information, especially as they turn into self-driving laboratories
Biological Design Tools expand the in-silico capabilities of biological researchers, focusing efforts and resources around a specific goal

Is this even possible?

In 1 hour non-scientist students at MIT identified 4 potential pathogens together with how to genetically manufacture them, including a roadmap to engage external stakeholders with pre-drafted protocols.

Biological risk can be split into 5 categories:

Terrorist attacks (small chances of an extremely severe event)
Accidental lab leaks from labs doing dual-use research (each laboratory has a 0.01 to 0.1% per year to create a pandemic because of a transmissible virus escaping control and spreading)
Deliberate labs leaks from labs doing dual-use research (similar to pilots who deliberately crashed planes)
Accidental leaks from secretive bioweapon programs (for example the anthrax poisoning in the Soviet Union)
Deliberate release from bioweapon programs (this has already happened against animals and research is likely ongoing in many countries)

How to prevent the next pandemic

Policy
Biosafety & Biodefense

Why does this matter? And why am I talking about it?

Startups and innovation thrive where there are unmet needs.

The need for biosecurity solutions will grow in the years to come as technology and synthetic biology democratize access to state-of-the-art science.

Here are a few companies already working on this:

Concentric (by Ginko Bioworks) offers a data-driven operating system for early detection
Novacyt provides molecular diagnostic tools for near-patient testing against infectious diseases (i.e. Swine flu, Ebola, Zika, COVID-19)
Seaspec offers a Real-Time Pathogen Detection system at the Point of Care
BioFlyte develops an air sampler for the real-time detection of hazardous aerosol
Koniku builds smell cyborgs inside homes for the detection and diagnosis of diseases
Resmonics offers a clinical-grade lung symptom-tracking solution for workplaces and patients
Owlstone Medical is developing a breathalyzer for disease for the early detection of cancer, inflammatory and infectious diseases
Safetraces is working on verifying ventilation and filtration performance for the removal of airborne pathogens. They measure, verify and manage HVAC system performance

Note: I’m not a biosecurity expert. Credit goes to Aron’s amazing guide on Biosecurity where I found most of the insights and resources. If you want to learn more, check out his work.

This week's top reads

Latest funding rounds in health & bio

Ready to turn this news into your next career opportunity? Here is how

Bactolife raised €30M for their suite of gut microbiome products, starting with binding proteins that neutralize the effects of harmful microbes 🇩🇰
ZuriMED Technologies AG closed CHF 14.5M to scale their technology for minimally invasive surgical repair of soft tissues🇨🇭
Bind-X raised $10M to sustainably manufacture minerals from soil thanks to bioengineered microorganisms 🇩🇪
Sensorion raised $38M for their hearing loss therapeutic treatment in late Phase II and additional candidates for prevention 🇫🇷
Genomika Lietuva raised €5M to develop its DNA data storage tech 🇱🇹

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