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Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#21

Post by iamflimflam1 »

p1esk wrote: post #11
inconfident2021 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with public speaking. Whenever I see someone able to even create a video and upload with a face, I am in awe with their confidence. Public speaking just takes everything to the next level. How can people be so confident about themselves? For example some technical blogger post it like they own their posts. Going through that feels like the author is a all-knowing being. How does that even kick in within a per…

Most public speaking relevant to technology is reading slides. Not exactly an awe-inspiring task. And some other kinds of public speaking (e.g. Trump’s or Biden’s speeches) are so bad that I sincerely believe any moderately intelligent person should be able to do better. Technical blogger videos are not public speaking - there is plenty of editing.

Yep - for every minute of videos I upload there’s an hour of editing.

And recording audio is full of retakes.

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#23

Post by muzani »

Sales. It's the go to skill if everything else becomes useless. It's the primary skill if you choose entrepreneurship. It's useful for freelancing should you have any secondary skill. It's not about all that sleazy sales stuff, leads, CRM ability.

It's about

1. Knowing your product, who wants it, who is hurting because they don't have it.

2. Finding a way to reach out to the people who will benefit the most. Understanding sales/support channel. Cold calls and FB ads work for some things, but good sales people learn that there's plenty of other channels that work.

3. Explaining your product to the customer in a way that makes them go "shut up and take my money"

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#24

Post by msvana »

Sort of a meta answer: learning how to learn. It feels like the velocity of change is pretty high. So being able to pick up new skills quickly is important.

I also agree with others that soft skills are incredibly important.

As for fields of expertise, I am looking into many diverse topics such as urban planning, sociology, civil engineering, aerospace engineering, electricity production. I feel like at least in my environment there are a lot of problems that I could help solve if I had knowledge in some of these areas. Besides that I am doing a PhD and recently there has been a lot of emphasis on interdisciplinary research.

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#25

Post by mikewarot »

We've been here before... when VB6 and Delphi were out and popular, it became possible for domain experts to build a passable application and get the job done. There was still a large demand for programmers to come in and clean things up, fix all the edge cases, etc. if it turned out to be useful, when there was a larger target to adapt it for.

The current situation seems quite similar to me, tools to make code easier to write, but not easier to maintain. I think programming jobs are safe.

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#26

Post by inconfident2021 »

muzani wrote: post #23

Sales. It's the go to skill if everything else becomes useless. It's the primary skill if you choose entrepreneurship. It's useful for freelancing should you have any secondary skill. It's not about all that sleazy sales stuff, leads, CRM ability. It's about 1. Knowing your product, who wants it, who is hurting because they don't have it. 2. Finding a way to reach out to the people who will benefit the most. Understa…

There seems to be many people who thinks sales is the way to go. So does it mean that being a average engineer will have no value in substantial future?

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#27

Post by inconfident2021 »

mikewarot wrote: post #25

We've been here before... when VB6 and Delphi were out and popular, it became possible for domain experts to build a passable application and get the job done. There was still a large demand for programmers to come in and clean things up, fix all the edge cases, etc. if it turned out to be useful, when there was a larger target to adapt it for. The current situation seems quite similar to me, tools to make code easie…

People say our job is safe, but aren't we in similar position to the horses who got replaced by cars or telegraph operators who just vanished?

Re: Ask HN: What is the skill worth investing for next 20 years?

#28

Post by muzani »

inconfident2021 wrote: post #26
muzani wrote: post #23

Sales. It's the go to skill if everything else becomes useless. It's the primary skill if you choose entrepreneurship. It's useful for freelancing should you have any secondary skill. It's not about all that sleazy sales stuff, leads, CRM ability. It's about 1. Knowing your product, who wants it, who is hurting because they don't have it. 2. Finding a way to reach out to the people who will benefit the most. Understa…

There seems to be many people who thinks sales is the way to go. So does it mean that being a average engineer will have no value in substantial future?

Sales is the low risk, medium returns option. Engineering is high risk, high returns.
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