The Future of Generalist Work
What else has been hidden by summary? What thoughts must we resist abridging? Those giant sequoias echo a reminder to ask ourselves, what are the unseen things today that could be growing?
Simon Sarris • Long Distance Thinking
If AI is the ultimate summarizer, and we transition our human processes to include AI to strip away context, what will we be missing?
Here are eight imperatives—all of them drawing strength and sustenance from the humanities:
- We need a way of defining and pursuing progress that doesn’t reduce that concept to something that only comes from a digital device.
- We desperately need access to values and wisdom that aren’t corrupted by the relentless financial metrics and imposed flavor-of
Ted Gioia • The Real Crisis in Humanities Isn't Happening at College
Very, very many people at Stripe today are doing a quite different job to the one that they join for. In order to do that they've often had to learn a lot and stretch themselves into new areas.
Building a culture of excellence | David Singleton (CTO of Stripe)
On that note: hot off the presses is yet another study making the case that optimizing for youth sports performance undermines longer-term development. I highlight that specific theme because I think it’s the fundamental idea that runs through every page of Range (but that would have made for a less snazzy subtitle): short- and long-term developmen... See more
David Epstein • Caitlin Clark's Not-So-Surprising Childhood
Another study on the power of generalist work
The person who focuses on one task and sees it through to completion—even if they work in a somewhat slow or outdated manner—beats the endless optimizer who jumps from tool to tool and always hopes a new piece of technology will help them finish what they start.
James Clear • 3-2-1: On seizing the day, perseverance, and focusing on one task at a time
Generalists are force multipliers.
I believe “what effect do you want to have on people” is one of the most important questions we should ask when we are making something. Life isn't just a series of problems to be solved but experiences to be had.
Things I'm thinking about
My aha moment of the value of first principles thinking was when I was at Dropbox. We would hire a ton of really smart people that had never done sales and had them do sales. There are a lot of disadvantages to that, but I do think it led to a ton of innovation. That's how we got our very innovative go-to market motions because a lot of those peopl... See more
Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva)
The Imperfectionist: Doing things is what counts
ckarchive.com“Here’s what I mean: everyone seems to yearn for the productivity technique or life philosophy or set of personal rules that will cause them to do more writing, launch a business, be a better listener, or finally start meditating. But nothing beats actually doing a bit of the thing to reinforce to yourself that you’re capable of making progress on it. The best way to convince a five-year-old that enjoyable leisure doesn’t require addictive technology is to spend a few hours demonstrating that it doesn’t; and the best way to prove to yourself that you can add words to the manuscript of your novel is to add a few.”