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J-Curves vs Stairs: Two Approaches to Career Growth

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For my first two years at Facebook, I worked on the People team. I worked on big, complicated, hard projects, learned a ton, and had a great manager. For all intents and purposes, I was happy and growing. I was planning to stay there for a while. Then Chamath came to me and said, “We’re going to build a phone. Come build it with me.” After a lot of deliberation, I decided to join him, and in doing so, I took the first big J-Curve leap of my career. A J-Curve is what I call a risky career choice with a potentially big payoff. It’s a choice where you bet that you can transfer the skills you currently have to a completely new environment and the upside, if you do it successfully, is that you get to prove you are capable of more. To me, the J-Curve is the alternative to taking the Stairs: staying in your comfortable role and getting promoted every 2-5 years, walking up to (hopefully) somewhere great. Growth is slower, but the stairs are a safer bet. We can make a conscious choice to take J

J-Curves vs Stairs: Two Approaches to Career Growth Molly Graham May 10, 2023 ∙ Paid 83 4 8 Share 👋Hi! I'm Molly. This is where I share the lessons I’ve learned from building fast-moving, messy, ambitious companies. For more from me, you can also find me on the WorkLife Podcast , on LinkedIn , and in Glue Club, a community for leaders who care about building great companies . For my first two years at Facebook, I worked on the People team. I worked on big, complicated, hard projects, learned a ton, and had a great manager. For all intents and purposes, I was happy and growing. I was planning

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