Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#101

Post by BerislavLopac » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 10:37 AM UTC

collyw wrote: post #97

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

"Full Stack Developer" is pretty much a generalist, and they are as in demand as ever.

It is a generalist within the "computer programming" skill, so still a specialist. It all comes down to how narrow we define "specialisation".

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#102

Post by collyw » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:06 AM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #72

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

Having domain knowledge in accounting would certainly help you if you were writing accounting software. And similarly, having programming skills as an accountant could be quite useful for creating custom tooling.

Sure this is useful, but the vast majority of my jobs have involved picking up the domain knowledge in the first couple of months.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#103

Post by collyw » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:11 AM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #64

mobjack wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project management requires a more generalist skill set compared a senior programmer. Specialization is good to a point, but then it can be more valuable to branch into other areas. After you learn how to program, you will need to learn what to program and that requires more diverse skills and knowledge to make those decisions.

Is that actually true? I've met very few project managers who know any discipline other than project management with anything I would call depth. I can't even imagine talking to a PM about any serious technical question anymore. Their answers in the past have always been a unique type of unhelpfully vague but hard to argue with which puts all the effort back on you, but not in a way which adds anything to solving the…

Yeah, I have found a few PM's who were "used to be technical". To be honest I found it a bit frustrating at times as they would think they knew enough to make (some of the) technical decisions, when I felt that I should actually be making those decisions as was the one actually getting my hands dirty with the code. Plus I had more experience as a developer than them, as they had transitioned to PM and hadn't actually been building stuff for a while.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#104

Post by kartickv » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:13 AM UTC

_Microft wrote: post #93

nordsieck wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": >> Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. If you take this advice and tone it down a lot, it becomes both reasonable and good. From Scott Adam's Career Advice [0]: >…

Be part of the top of 25% in three independent fields and there is your (0.25^3 ~= 0.016) top 1-2% skill set.

It's hard to reach that level of skill in two (let alone three) fields in a reasonable amount of time.

It may also take your focus away from becoming good enough in your primary skill to pass the hiring bar. If you can do engineering, marketing and UX design, but you're not good enough in any of these fields to get hired as an engineer, marketer or designer, you're in trouble.

I think it's better to pick a primary field, get to the top 10% in that field, while being good enough at a secondary skill. For example, "I'm a great engineer, but I can also get you your first 10,000 users on the marketing side. I won't be as good as a dedicated marketing person, of course, but I can get this job done." Then you can apply for an engineer job, convince them how good an engineer you're, and then convince them that you also have some design and marketing skills.

(10% was an arbitrary number. The point is that your skills in your primary field should be good enough to clear the bar.)

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#105

Post by tzekid » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 11:51 AM UTC

f4stjack wrote: post #94

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

Do agree. I am a: - philosopher (Bachelor's degree) - sociologist (Master's degree with thesis on criminology) - international relations student (another bachelor's dg in 2 years) - C# Programmer (by a workshop) - Java Programmer (by profession) - Python programmer / Data scientist (by self education) - Data Analyst with SQL(workshop & profession) and the HR guys around here just think "I am not focused enough" and d…

Working in a team is not only about skill, but about work-culture. If they have dismissed you because you have a broad range of interests, then that place wasn't right for you anyways.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#106

Post by mgreenham » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

f4stjack wrote: post #94

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is, it doesn't seem to pay, at least in the employment market. Employers want specialists, and pay for them. If your CV is two or three distinct things (I don't mean a selection of languages, or front and back end dev here, I mean distinct skills like say programming and accountancy) it's very unlikely to get you a better salary. In fact if you've diverged from a straight specialism throughout your career it's…

Do agree. I am a: - philosopher (Bachelor's degree) - sociologist (Master's degree with thesis on criminology) - international relations student (another bachelor's dg in 2 years) - C# Programmer (by a workshop) - Java Programmer (by profession) - Python programmer / Data scientist (by self education) - Data Analyst with SQL(workshop & profession) and the HR guys around here just think "I am not focused enough" and d…

I have a startup in healthcare (health.ai) looking in San Diego for broad interest developer... mike@health.ai

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#107

Post by ryanmercer » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

I'd argue none of these individual were geniuses though. By all means they were men that made considerable contributions to society but I think they were simply men that had opportunity and means to pursue their passions.

Aristotle almost certainly never worked a day in his life. He likely benefited from patroi-cliens arrangements. His job was to think, to learn, to observe the world around him. We don't really have anything like what he and his contemporaries had today, the closest we have is career academics.

Leonardo (his name is NOT Leonardo da Vinci, that would be like calling me Ryan Speedway) was again someone who mostly lived off of patrons/benefactors after his youth, which we know virtually nothing of, and had a lot of free time. He went into an apprenticeship at 14 and by 28 he was working for, arguably, the richest family in the world as an artist. Again, he simply had a lot of free time to contemplate the world around him and tinker.

Benjamin Franklin read. A lot. Like really a LOT. By 21 he was hardcore networking by creating Junto and later as a Mason. Combine his reading with his mechanical knowledge by working with printing presses and being generally successful financially again gave him a lot of free time for the era, time to spend contemplating existence, observing the world around him, talking to experts in other fields, sitting around Lodge discussing various topics.

I wouldn't say they were geniuses, I would say they were fortunate. They mad means of support and had free time. They had the freedom to pursue things that interested them and support systems in place to allow them to worry little about surviving and focus more on tinkering.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#108

Post by mark_l_watson » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 1:59 PM UTC

nordsieck wrote: post #26

snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

> Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": >> Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. If you take this advice and tone it down a lot, it becomes both reasonable and good. From Scott Adam's Career Advice [0]: >…

+1, I like your catch that the article is similar to Scott Adam’s Book’s advice. I liked the article, but I am biased since in my career I have tried very hard to be an expert at three things: classic symbolic AI, building large scale distributed systems, and Machine Learning.

I am in my mid 60s so I have had the benefit of working with many people who were individually very skilled in more that one field, and these people were the highest producers not just for the direct work they did but also for influencing other developers. These 7 or 8 people have had the greatest influence on my career.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#109

Post by mygo » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

ryanmercer wrote: post #107

snowwrestler wrote: post #10

Look, this essay is ridiculous. It starts by citing Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Benjamin Franklin, and then delivers silly things like this definition of a "generalist": > Someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. Then proceeds with: > Despite the world’s immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That’s because…

I'd argue none of these individual were geniuses though. By all means they were men that made considerable contributions to society but I think they were simply men that had opportunity and means to pursue their passions. Aristotle almost certainly never worked a day in his life. He likely benefited from patroi-cliens arrangements. His job was to think, to learn, to observe the world around him. We don't really have…

There’s probably been hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who had free time since Leonardo.

Leisure time is a necessity, but it’s not the difference maker.

Re: Why the world needs deep generalists, not specialists

#110

Post by ryanmercer » Mon, Nov 19, 2018, 3:35 PM UTC

mygo wrote: post #109

ryanmercer wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue none of these individual were geniuses though. By all means they were men that made considerable contributions to society but I think they were simply men that had opportunity and means to pursue their passions. Aristotle almost certainly never worked a day in his life. He likely benefited from patroi-cliens arrangements. His job was to think, to learn, to observe the world around him. We don't really have…

There’s probably been hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who had free time since Leonardo. Leisure time is a necessity, but it’s not the difference maker.

>There’s probably been hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who had free time since Leonardo.

But did they have wealthy benefactors underwriting their life?

Aristotle thought for a living. He almost certainly never had to worry about money, ever.

Leonardo had to churn out works of art occasionally to keep money coming in. In the case of Leonardo he could pursue an odd project and in some cases get someone wealthy to finance it and as a student of art he studied human form, studied the mechanical nature of living creatures. He naturally applied that artist's eye to form and function to doodling inventions, some of which he made and some of which stayed on paper. I wouldn't be surprised if there have been hundreds of thousands of people that have doodled such machines and contraptions and simply not had the wealthiest family in the world to pay them to make some of them as novelties for court.

Franklin learned about printing, ran away, hustled and started his own printing operation becoming quite a name in the printing industry then used that success to throw money at many other industries. When he died his estate was worth tens of millions of inflation-adjusted dollars. It's a hell of a lot easier to be successful at a myriad of things when you actually have the funds to tinker.

Look at Silicon Valley, you see founders with multiple successful exits. It's a lot easier to get funding after you've already had a success, it's a lot easier to get press after you've already had success, it's a lot easier to get customers and attract good talent when you've already had success.