Optimize for Learning

Early career, prioritize learning velocity over titles—compound interest kicks in later

Boz (Andrew Bosworth)
Making Meta | Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth (CTO)

Optimize for Learning

"I had this really funny thing. I was kind of joking it was like, for those who are old enough to remember Karate Kid, I felt like I was painting a lot of fences, waxing a lot of cars, and at the end I knew karate." - Boz

What It Is

Early in your career, prioritize learning velocity and skill-building over titles and promotions. This may make your career progress look slower initially compared to peers who specialize early, but it compounds dramatically later.

Boz changed roles every six months at early Facebook while peers who stayed in one place got promoted faster. But when he finally found deep roles (ads, then hardware), his career went vertical because he had a broad foundation to build on.

How It Works

The Trade-off

  • Specialization path: Stay in one area, get promoted faster, but may plateau or get bored
  • Learning path: Move around frequently, slower early promotions, but builds broader foundation

The Compound Effect Like compound interest:

  • First 10 years of compound interest don't look impressive
  • After 10 years, the curve steepens dramatically
  • Early career learning works the same way

When to Move Move when you're not learning enough—when you're bored. Stay when you're still learning, even if you could get promoted by moving.

How to Apply It

  1. Prioritize Learning Over Titles Early career, ask "where will I learn the most?" not "where will I get the best title?"

  2. Move When Bored If you've exhausted what you can learn in a role after six months, move on. Don't stay for comfort.

  3. Don't Fear the Unconventional Path Others may advance faster initially. Trust that breadth compounds into depth later.

  4. Look for Deep Roles Some roles have years of learning. When you find one, stay. Not every role needs to be short.

  5. Embrace "Painting Fences" Random-seeming experiences build skills you'll use later in unexpected ways.

Example: Boz's Early Facebook Career

Boz changed roles roughly every six months:

  • Anti-spam/anti-scraping
  • News Feed (1 year)
  • Site speed and infrastructure
  • Engineering boot camp
  • Messaging and groups

Meanwhile, peers in his cohort specialized and got promoted faster. But when he took the ads role and stayed for five years, his career "went vertical." The broad foundation let him excel.

Signs You Should Move

  • You're not learning new things
  • You're bored
  • You've "mastered" the domain (at your current level)
  • Staying feels like comfort rather than growth

Signs You Should Stay

  • You're still learning a lot
  • The domain has years of depth
  • You love the work
  • You haven't yet hit mastery

Caution: Domain Specialists

Some peers who specialized early "literally got bored of what they were doing, but didn't have any place to jump to." They became experts in a domain they'd exhausted, with no adjacent skills to leverage.

Source

  • Guest: Boz (Andrew Bosworth)
  • Episode: "Making Meta | Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth (CTO)"
  • Key Discussion: (00:39:14) - The value of moving around and optimizing for learning
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

Related Frameworks

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