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Jeff Kaplan: belief

11 Mar 2026 Lex Fridman Podcast #493 – Jeff Kaplan: World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Blizzard, and Future of Gaming

“Do you wanna be a game maker?” And I think we get lost in the trappings of, like a vision of what that role is- … and how to perform as a fake actor in that role.”

— Jeff Kaplan

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Everything needed to verify it.

Speaker
Jeff Kaplan
Attribution
Verified speaker
Claim type
belief
Recorded
11 Mar 2026
Publisher
Lex Fridman Podcast

Transcript context

…You’re so lost in the world. I mean, most of us are lost our entire lives, but especially in your 20s, you know, like, you’re lost. So the questions like, yeah, “What are you doing? What’s your major? What’s the career?” And so on, that’s not the point, man. I’m trying to move through the world, I’m trying to run through the world to find the thing that sparks my heart, to find the passion, to find what I’m meant to be on this earth for. And there are really, I mean, that is a real hero’s journey of searching as a young person. That’s a real, like, you know, all the adults, with their wisdom, they’ve stopped searching often. They’ve done the lazy, the comfortable thing. They found their thing. And so now they look back, they don’t remember how much suffering and how much uncertainty that young people have to deal with. It’s, there’s confusion, there’s pressure. Like, the pressure we exert on younger people for having it figured out is insane. So the advice that I always give, and it sounds so stupid, like this sounds really trite, but focus on what you wanna do, not what you wanna be. The pressure that society kind of puts on us is, you know, “Oh, do you wanna be an astronaut? Do you wanna be a firefighter? Do you wanna be a writer? Do you wanna be a game maker?” And I think we get lost in the trappings of, like a vision of what that role is- … and how to perform as a fake actor in that role. Versus when you’re off the clock and no one’s asking you any questions- … you, you know, you’re not at Thanksgiving dinner and your uncle’s pressuring you into, you know, what your future’s gonna be for the rest of your life. When you go home, how do you spend your time? Like, what makes you happy? What brings you fulfillment? And through those paths, you’re gonna find out what you’re gonna become, not what you wanna be. It’s, “What do you wanna do?” What do you wanna do? The thing that brings you joy on a moment by moment basis. Yeah. That’s brilliantly put. And speaking of which, that’s where you took the pivot. You switched to video games. How did that happen? Gradually? Suddenly?…

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