Hard and valuable aren’t the same thing

One of the harder truths to internalize is that there’s very little correlation between a problem being difficult and a problem being valuable. It is easy to fall into the trap of assuming the two travel together. If something is taking all our effort and ingenuity, surely it must matter — and we take the struggle itself as proof we’re doing important work. But difficulty and value sit on separate axes. Plenty of brutally hard problems are worth little once solved. And some of the most valuable ones are relatively simple — but executing them well is worth a lot. So, as you attempt to build your career and find yourself drawn to hard problems, make sure they’re also valuable ones to solve.