This is a letter to my son as he begins his career.
As you begin your first job, you will probably receive a lot of advice. Some of it will be useful immediately. Some of it will make sense only years later. A lot of it will be forgotten entirely.
What I want to share with you are not rules for success, but patterns I have seen repeatedly over the years while watching careers unfold - my own and those of many others around me.
Careers, much like investing, compound quietly for a long time before the results become visible. Most people see only the visible outcome: the promotion, the title, the wealth, the recognition. What they often miss are the small repeated decisions underneath. Who stayed curious longer. Who volunteered more often. Who kept showing up. Who deliberately positioned themselves close to opportunity. Who developed a reputation for being dependable when things got hard.
These things rarely look dramatic in the moment. Over decades, they matter enormously. Careers are built far more by consistency than by occasional brilliance.
One of the earliest lessons life taught me was the importance of staying close to the center of activity. Early in my career at Wipro, I was lucky to work in one of the group offices where much of the leadership operated from. At that stage, I doubt I fully understood why it mattered. Looking back, it changed the flow of information around me.
I became aware of projects being discussed, clients being pursued and areas where the company wanted to invest even before those opportunities formally opened up. That allowed me to put my hand up early for projects that eventually became important for my own growth.
Opportunities are rarely distributed evenly. Information isn’t either. The people closest to where decisions are being made often see the future slightly earlier than others.
In your case, you are entering the AI industry at an extraordinary moment. Entire industries are going to be reshaped over the next decade. Being in the middle of that wave matters. I benefited from the IT services wave for the first years of my working career. Your wave is likely way bigger than mine - make the most of it!
Stay close to builders. Stay close to customers. Stay closest to ambitious people who are creating things. Energy and ambition tend to cluster geographically and in some teams even with the organization. There is value in proximity that cannot fully be explained on a spreadsheet.
Another pattern I have seen repeatedly is that careers accelerate when people go beyond the narrow boundaries of their role.
Many people approach work like an assignment. They complete what was given to them and mentally stop there. The people who tend to grow faster are usually the ones who remain curious beyond their immediate task.
While I was at McKinsey, I worked with a large IT services company that was trying to win telecom clients. Part of that work involved conferences where they pitched their capabilities to customers. I remember helping set up stalls at those conferences alongside the client teams themselves. None of this sat neatly within what I was “supposed” to be doing.
But that experience exposed me to customers, sales processes and industry conversations much earlier than I would otherwise have encountered them. More importantly, it taught me that we don’t have to wait for our turn. Learning opportunities are everywhere; we just need to show up in many places.
Some of the best opportunities arrive disguised as slightly inconvenient extra work.
I have also felt the steepest growth happens when you are closest to the edge of change. Stay close to that edge because it's an uncomfortable place and most people don't want that discomfort. But this is the zone of the best opportunities and people who are early to a new market have the opportunity to shape the market and to benefit from the rising tide. If you intersect one of those edges, jump and stay in it for a decade or more.
One more thing I would strongly encourage you to do is to remain interested in the business itself, not just the technical problem in front of you. Learn how the company makes money. Learn why customers buy. Learn which teams influence growth and which problems matter commercially. Technical excellence is important but technology is a means to an end and understanding the larger system around the technology becomes a significant advantage over time.
Related to this is another belief I hold strongly: whenever possible, stay in a role that is key to organization. I learned early at Wipro that the company was monetizing engineers and hence engineers were the most important people in the company. If you are working for McKinsey you want to be a consultant who is driving revenues. If you are in a hospital you want to be the doctor (likely the cardiologist).
Years ago, my uncle received an attractive offer from an automobile company to help with IT implementation. The compensation was significantly better than what he was earning at Wipro, where he was an engineer at the time. I remember advising against it because I felt that at Wipro, technology itself was the business. He was part of the core engine of value creation. At the automobile company, IT would remain a support function. I wish he had taken that advice seriously.
If you find yourself somewhere less than perfect and can't move, don't dwell on it. What matters just as much is the intensity with which you pursue the path you're on. Commitment has a remarkable way of closing the gap between a good choice and the perfect one.
None of us can predict the future perfectly. But the broader lesson stayed with me: over long periods, people closest to customers, growth and revenue creation often end up participating more directly in the upside generated by industries.
Another thing I have repeatedly noticed is how much initiative matters early in a career.
Organizations expect young people to lack experience. What stands out instead is ownership, curiosity and energy.
At Wipro, we were repeatedly building command-line interfaces separately for different customer projects. At some point, I started wondering if this could become a reusable internal product instead of being rebuilt every time. So I spent time trying to productize it and even created collateral around it so we could sell it to other companies.
The product itself never really went anywhere commercially. But people noticed the initiative.
Many worthwhile efforts will not succeed directly. But the effort is rarely wasted. Initiative signals intent. It tells people how you think, that you are willing to go the extra mile. Over time, organizations place disproportionate trust in high agency people. Be one of those!
And finally, work hard. Harder than feels fashionable or comfortable.
I know conversations around work today often focus on optimization, boundaries and balance. Some of that is healthy. But early in life, intensity has enormous compounding value.
There was a period at Wipro when I was working so late and coming in so early that my project lead arranged mattresses in the office for me to sleep there for a few weeks. Looking back, it probably sounds excessive. Maybe it was.
But I learned at a speed that would have been impossible otherwise. People noticed too. Senior leaders noticed. Opportunities followed - including chances to travel to the US and work more closely with customers.
Hard work has an interesting property. Even before it produces visible results, it produces trust. And that gets you better quality work and more opportunities. It also establishes you as someone others can count on.
As you begin this journey, say yes slightly more often than is comfortable, even to things you don't know how to accomplish. Back yourselves to learn or to find a way. Volunteer for things before you feel fully ready.
Avoid becoming overly focused on optimizing your time too early. I find way too many young people being focused on efficiency and trying to protect their time. That time to protect will come but exposure matters more than efficiency at the beginning. The extra project, the additional meeting, the side conversation, the willingness to help on something unglamorous - these things expand the surface area through which luck can find you.
Because luck does matter.
But what people often call luck is most times just showing up, knocking on doors, and doing it long enough.
You will make mistakes. Everyone does. Some decisions that seem brilliant in the moment will fail. But try nevertheless. Go for the audacious things. It's not the frequency of correctness that matters but the magnitude of correctness. Give yourselves the chance for power law to work.
I could be wrong about parts of this. Every generation has to discover certain truths for itself. But these are patterns life has shown me repeatedly, and I wanted to pass them on to you as you begin building your own path.
And regardless of how your career unfolds, remember this: do what you love if you can. But also learn to love what you do. The people who sustain intensity for decades are usually the ones who find meaning in the craft itself, not just the rewards that come from it.
All the best for what lies ahead! Excited for you and for what you will do for this world!
Recommended Reads
Three articles I found interesting:
- This article reflects on what makes Chennai's iconic family-run businesses endure. Through a field report on businesses like GRT, Pothy's, Nuts & Spices, and Nalli's Silks, it explores why and how these companies have remained relevant over decades. Their edge comes from staying true to their identity, investing in people, and proving that long-term resilience is the result of consistent compounding rather than constant reinvention.
- While modifying his own device, a software engineer accidentally gained access to nearly 7,000 internet-connected robot vacuums. This piece goes over the security flaw and the privacy risks of smart home tech. My takeaway is about how every leap in convenience brings an equal responsibility to build products people can trust.
- In the previous edition of Connecting the Dots, we explored how excellence grows through steady, uneventful practices and embracing the seemingly ordinary. This piece builds on that idea, arguing that a quiet, "boring" life isn't something to avoid but something to intentionally build. It makes the case that a life built on meaningful routines, strong relationships, and stability is a life well lived.
If you have time for longer reads:
Will It Make the Boat Go Faster: Olympic-Winning Strategies for Everyday Success by Ben Hunt-Davis and Harriet Beveridge
Olympic gold medalist Ben Hunt-Davis shares the story of how his British rowing team went from perennial underachievers to champions. Their breakthrough came from asking one deceptively simple question before every decision: "Will it make the boat go faster?" It's a great read on eliminating distractions and prioritizing what matters.
by Bob Rottela
Drawing on decades of work with elite golfers, sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella writes that success in golf has less to do with technique than with mindset. Through stories from professional golfers and practical mental strategies, he shows that confidence is something you choose despite uncertainty. Instead of chasing perfection, Rotella encourages readers to accept mistakes, trust their preparation, and stay fully committed to every shot.
Do write in at gv@peakxv.com if any of my interests intersect with yours! Click here to read more articles on Peak XV’s blog. I’m also on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).
