This is a great mental model. I'm curious about applying this in areas of one's own life. Certain things that you'd actually accomplish faster, by starting later and leveraging the compounded time / resources that would have been spent pursuing it earlier.
The 80,000 hours folks generally apply this kind of reasoning to explain why it’s better for most people to just focus on a corporate job, stockpile a ton of cash, and donate it all when you die, instead of quitting to join a cause / non-profit - if your only goal is to optimize your impact.
Obviously people are free to choose differently and there are exceptions, unique circumstances etc.
I’m reasonably confident your summary of their advice is out of date. They now believe most organizations are talent constrained and the difference between the best and second best candidate is often very large so most people should be trying to work on hard problems fast if they can.
OT, but if solar panels last for over 20 years and get at least 5% cheaper every year, you save more money by waiting to install them than you do by installing them.
That does not factor in the money you make with the solar panel. I.e., if having a solar panel nets a profit of 10% of the cost of the solar panel, than installing one now makes more money than waiting a year.
