The Future of Generalist Work
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... See more
Building high-performing teams | Melissa Tan (Webflow, Dropbox, Canva)
many of society’s most pressing challenges – such as climate change – require highly creative problem-solving that crosses multiple domains, and polymaths may be the best people to find those solutions.
David Robson • Why Some People Are Impossibly Talented
Emotional labor is the opposite of the industrial economy’s task-based, measured output. Even if we don’t dig ditches, the offer for a certain kind of work was: Process this pile of papers and we don’t care whether you like (or pretend to like) your job. The labor is the easily measured stuff.
But AI and mechanization have turned this sort of task... See more
But AI and mechanization have turned this sort of task... See more
Emotional labor and its consequences
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
Ted Gioia • The Real Crisis in Humanities Isn't Happening at College
Keep a curiosity inbox. Whenever you get a new idea, write it down in a specific note or on a dedicated page in your notebook. Then, each time the idea pops back into your mind, give it a mark or increase its rating. Over time, you’ll develop a ranked list of ideas based on your long-term interests. This strategy allows you to continue exploring... See more
nesslabs.com • The Curiosity Conflict: The Struggle to Shift From Exploration to Exploitation
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... See more
David Epstein • Caitlin Clark's Not-So-Surprising Childhood
Another study on the power of generalist work
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.”
Mihika likens the role of a 0-to-1 team within a large company to that of Hestia in Greek mythology, who is the “keeper of the hearth.” It is Hestia’s job to always keep the hearth burning, even while other gods go out on separate quests. This means always keeping the 0-to-1 project alive and helping it spread to others, mostly through setting... See more
Lenny Rachitsky • Vision, conviction, and hype: How to build 0 to 1 inside a company | Mihika Kapoor (Product at Figma)
If consumer behavior is evolving as a result of technology, businesses either compete to get ahead of it, they perpetually react to it, or they belittle it. One of the most problematic aspects around digital maturity is that technology is both part of the solution and also part of the problem.