The Future of Generalist Work

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

Collapse the talent stack every chance you get .

As I reflect on the teams I’ve led and hundreds of start-ups I’ve worked with, there is a consistent unfair competitive advantage i’ve witnessed when the talent stack was collapsed - when the lead designer was also the product leader, when the front-end engineer was also a designer, when the designer... See more

scott belsky • Tweet

Hiring generalists collapses the talent stack, thereby improving decision making and synthesis of information, and giving companies to act quickly when time and resources are limited.

So many of the problems that teams have — communication, organization, strategy — are unrelated to the function.

23 Tactical Company Building Lessons, Learned From Scaling Stripe & Notion

Generalists can unlock solves to org problems specialists have trouble fixing.

The person who focuses on one task and sees it through to completion—even if they work in a somewhat slow or outdated manner—beats the endless optimizer who jumps from tool to tool and always hopes a new piece of technology will help them finish what they start.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

As I discovered, talent and drive aren’t enough. If anything, talent can make finding ideas feel more daunting because it increases the number of available opportunities.

Ruchi Sanghvi • To Go 0 to 1, First Go -1 to 0

Steve Jobs explains the importance of both thinking and doing:

“The doers are the major thinkers. The people who really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker-doer in one person.”

You see, task management (what GTD teaches) is a meta-skill – a skill that enhances your ability to learn and apply other skills.

Meta-skills are not specific to any particular subject or field but are broadly applicable across various domains. For example, emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking, self-regulation, and... See more

Superhuman

Each drop is creative and rebellious, winking to the world that capitalism is a necessary joke. They do all of this with a team of 34 people, most of whom are generalists with no background in making physical goods.

Evan Armstrong • The Art of Scaling Taste

The magic that MSCHF makes with generalists is the stuff of legend

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