Four lessons in, you've learned to chase outcomes, find real problems, stay tech-smart, and translate between worlds. Here's the question that ties it all together and will quietly steer your whole career: what problems do you actually want to solve?
Missionaries beat mercenaries
Bezos lights up when he talks about a certain kind of builder — and it's a clue about where your best work will come from:
"I just love… missionary entrepreneurs. People who are doing it because there's something about the mission that they just can't not do it."
— Jeff Bezos, Italian Tech Week 2025Mercenaries chase whatever's hot (which, conveniently, is usually the latest technology — the exact trap from Lesson 1). Missionaries chase a problem they care about. Over a long career, missionaries win, because caring is what gets you through the boring and brutal parts.
Pick a problem you can love for a decade
This isn't a vague "follow your passion." It's practical advice. Charlie Warren is blunt about it:
"Pick a market you're excited to work in for a long time… If you don't love some combination of the customers or the market or the technical problem, you're not going to make it."
— Charlie Warren, Y CombinatorNotice the menu: you can be hooked by the customers, the market, or the technical problem. You don't need all three. But you need at least one that genuinely pulls you. That pull is your "stubborn vision" from Lesson 2 — the thing you stay loyal to while the tools change around you.
Real problems are everywhere — including the unglamorous ones
Here's a freeing truth: the most valuable problems are often the least flashy. Tony Xu built a multi-billion-dollar company on food delivery in the suburbs — not exactly sci-fi. And he points out how much of the world AI still can't touch:
"Where is the last parking spot in a rainstorm? How many apples does the local grocery store have in aisle 6? …no LLM has the answer to."
— Tony Xu, DoorDash CEOHis mission is almost charmingly down-to-earth: grow the GDP of cities — which, he says, really just means "prosperity, abundance, jobs, and problems being solved." You don't have to invent the next frontier model to matter. You have to find a real problem and solve it well.
Clever and kind
One last idea to carry with you. As a 10-year-old, Bezos cleverly calculated how many years his grandmother's smoking had cost her — and made her cry. His grandfather pulled him aside and said something he never forgot:
"One day you'll understand that it's harder to be kind than it is to be clever."
— Bezos's grandfather, via Jeff BezosTechnology makes you clever. What you choose to do with it — who you help, what outcomes you create — is where kindness lives. The best MIS professionals are both. Be clever enough to understand the tech; be kind enough to point it at problems worth solving.
1. Don't marry the tool — fall for the problem.
2. Start with a real person and their real need.
3. Stay tech-smart so nobody can fool you.
4. Translate between business and tech — that's your superpower.
5. Aim it all at problems you actually care about.
Write your one-page Problem Brief
This is the whole module applied to your future. Fill in each box honestly — there are no wrong answers. Your responses save on this device, so you can come back to them.
1. The problem — What's something in the world (big or tiny) that genuinely bugs you or that you wish worked better?
2. The person — Who lives with this problem every day? Get specific about them.
3. The outcome — If you solved it, what would change for them? (No tech yet — just the result.)
4. The tech-smart question — What's one thing you'd need to understand about technology or data to solve it well?
5. Why you — What makes you care enough to work on this for years, not weeks?
Which person is best set up to thrive as an MIS professional?
Finished all five? Your progress bar should read 5/5. Nice work. 👏