21–30 of 84 posts
Marc Andreessen's "Guide to career planning"[1] is a much better piece for almost everyone. My takeaways were:
1) You probably won't be the best in your field. Aim for top 25% in two or more (disparate) fields and becoming the best at the intersection of those is achievable. (This is actually advice from Scott Adams that Andressen quotes)
2) Better to be a small fish in a big pond.
[1] https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part2.html
I didn't build a moat, I found one, and I keep digging. Generalization is really quite valuable, because it helps you find a passion and from there, you can find depths. Plumb some breadth as you go down, and repeat.
Or, don't. You can also just be good at stuff that there's high demand for, if you're the sort who keeps their nose up for the next thing to try. Otherwise, you might find yourself specializing in outdated tech. Which can be its own reward.
Blah blah blah, of course, it would be amazing if everyone could build personal moats, but guess what, very few people can. There's one Elad Gil. One Tim Ferriss. If 10,000 people try, perhaps one of them could roughly replicate Tim's success. Personal moats are great. And incredibly tough to build. I prefer advice that is actionable, and can bring results for most people following that advice. This one is not advice…
Blah blah blah, of course, it would be amazing if everyone could build personal moats, but guess what, very few people can. There's one Elad Gil. One Tim Ferriss. If 10,000 people try, perhaps one of them could roughly replicate Tim's success. Personal moats are great. And incredibly tough to build. I prefer advice that is actionable, and can bring results for most people following that advice. This one is not advice…
As a consultant my personal moat is a blend of my experience and current relevant knowledge. My 20 years in IT combined with my and MBA & my deep knowledge of cloud architectures is my moat. Previously it was my 15 years experience and my deep knowledge in automation.
What makes my moat changes over time, and if I stop learning new things my moat will vanish.
I dunno... I got a lot of value from this article. Nevermind the impossibility of everyone becoming a reputable master of their niche. 1) working towards that has benefits regardless of achieving the pinnacle of noteworthy in the examples given 2) being self-aware enough to be able to articulate the value you bring is not something most people are good at, but it’s definitely something everyone should practice.
I found this article difficult since "personal moat" is used as a target rather than as the side effect of a behavior. My experience here is limited of course to engineers and academics, generally technical people I've known over the years as they have grown professionally. The ones who have "moats" are the same people whose career choices have been deliberate rather than opportunistic. When I meet people who are del…
Oh there are so many of us with those FAX personal moats. You work on something, a framework, a data interchange thingy that only you know, and over time others keep moving but you become the one indispensable guy ... until one day you are not.
I found this article difficult since "personal moat" is used as a target rather than as the side effect of a behavior. My experience here is limited of course to engineers and academics, generally technical people I've known over the years as they have grown professionally. The ones who have "moats" are the same people whose career choices have been deliberate rather than opportunistic. When I meet people who are del…
Even if your specialization continues to be valuable, it's still something that can easily and insidiously turn from a moat to a pidgeon-hole to a set of golden handcuffs. I think the distinction comes in how portable your specialization is, ie. "I'm really good at rapid prototyping" vs. your example of "I know everything there is to know about FAX". If anything, I'd be cautious of building a personal moat based on k…
Look at the premise here: your life is a competition, a fight. People are coming for you and you'd better have a moat if you want to keep your position. Also, solve the ikigai which has 4 simultaneous variables to optimize. Protip: live simply, save at a decent rate, get financial freedom and you can solve the much simpler 3-dimensional ikigai.
I always wondered if — maybe — it is me that is too playful, too improvised, too spontaneous: what if they are right and I am wrong? I have always been intrinsically driven by a broad range of topics. This arguably served me more over the years than any moat plan of any of my colleagues. I could more or less pick what to do next, while they were in their most and more or less stuck there, often complaining about the size, shape and color of the moat.
Moats are there to protect you from the outside, but they also stop you from being able to surf the waves and go with the flow.