191–200 of 278 posts
Something about this feels "horoscopy". Meaning most people who read this will think "that's me!". I wonder if that is the intent.
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This entire article was born from conversations I was having when doing research for my book on ADHD ( https://adhdpro.xyz/ ), so it’s a pretty strong correlation I would say :)
Thanks for the book. I managed to "read" it whole in about an hour. And basically, yes I do have ADHD as you described half of my life even the "smart girls" example did hit me as I did had similar smart girls back in the day in my classes. Also I did already try most of that stuff in the book, but I don't want to try let's say shrooms and I already quit somking tobbacco 3 years ago after 10+ years smoking. So I gues…
17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…
I disagree, with caveats. There's the idea of a "T-shaped person": A little bit of knowledge in a lot of things, with deep knowledge in one area. This is what organisations tend to hire for. The wildcard person eventually develops into a shape more akin to the differencing mark seen in heraldry for first-born sons. Much broader and deeper general knowledge, and several areas of very deep knowledge. As one of these pe…
The more you paint over a spot, the more it drips as paint accumulates. The things you spend the most time on, have the longest drips. Some may be in a T-shape, but as you say, there may be many longish drips in a person's skillset.
For the first 10 years of my career, I was more T-shaped. But also pretty good at jumping in and figuring things out.
I'm now a lot more "generalist" - I just tell people, "Try me; who knows what I'll know or be able to figure out". I still have some of those really long drips in my paint drip chart, a few really really long, but the nature of tech means that at some point, some tech you learned really well is dead and you'll never need to use it again. Such is life!
Nice read. Kind of reminds me of T shaped people - https://jchyip.medium.com/why-t-shaped-people-e8706198e437
I'd also say that being a T shaped person is how I'd try to be „hirable“ as a generalist. Get really good at one thing that has a title (in my case: „Data Engineer“) but also have a broad range of skills.
A challenge for me I don’t see listed is I find it hard to empathize with non-wildcards. If I run across an IT person stuck doing something “because that’s how we always do”, or “xyz is too hard to learn”, or unwilling to learn something new, it bugs me. I try to be kind and realize it takes all sorts of people, but I may think mean things about them :). Sometimes I also go too hard for the new and shiny over tried and true.
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Google does not. It hires a lot of specialists and fungible people.
Specialist and fungible are contradictory. It's true that they don't hire specialists - but there are only 7-8 different software profiles they look for. 1. ML 2. Systems 3. Product 4. Data engineer 5. SRE ....
I think that's all of us, really. I'm reminded of Heinlein's quote "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,…
Easier said than done. For example, that's what Elon Musk believes he is. He has enormous amounts of money to back his ideas, and then you have seen the results, mostly is just manipulation and other people actually do the things.
17 years ago, there was a popular essay about this sort of person, and the label at the time was "Free Electron": https://randsinrepose.com/archives/free-electron/ Before that, they were known as "generalists", autodidacts, polymaths, etc. The thing is that pretty much any clever person that's easily invested in novel things can become one of these people, so this label isn't reserved for people who are generalists,…
I'd be interested in seeing if other wildcard types actually care about this? Beyond living well of course, need cash for that. My drive is dopamine, not money. As long as I'm fed and not in debt I couldn't give a rat's tail how much I'm earning. I'd take a hefty pay cut to jump on a "hell yes" project.
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Yes, the idea and the debate is as old as history. I prefer the quote from Heinlein, "Specialization is for insects." Because actually, if you look at well run organizations, everybody needs to be a generalist to some degree. You don't just work in a silo and ignore every other aspect of what your organization does, otherwise you produce deficient solutions that your colleagues in their own siloes need to work around…
It's an evocative quote, but it's also nonsense. The selection of skills is a bit scattershot, but let's look at some examples: "butchering a hog" takes a year to learn, well, butchery to a professional standard, because someone who can butcher hogs but not cows sounds awfully 'specialised', some places even say that a butchery apprenticeship takes 24 months. (And I personally wouldn't trust an unqualified butcher to…