What Is a Wildcard Person?

It’s hard in the end to evaluate effectiveness of T-shaped people across a wide spectrum of potential tasks, but I am curious if others have figured it out.

If you’re not a founder and you’re putting this kind of energy into your job, I hope you at least have substantial equity, because otherwise you’re being taken advantage of. Know your worth!

Also if you think this is you, it probably isn’t. There isn’t an “engineering” wildcard or a “marketing” wildcard, the whole point is that these people do everything.

Ken Coleman[1] mentioned the term “Intelligent Override” at a Podcast[2] about Mentors and Leadership with Ben Horowitz on Sep 28, 2022 (looks like a re-run).

The idea of someone going beyond the norms, systems and processes, rules and regulations to make things work better. Look out for People who can do “Intelligent Override.” Most companies don’t have many people like that. People who can go through the side door to get things done the right way - to get a customer, to solve a problem.

A brilliant intellect can anticipate which turns lead to treasure and which lead to certain death. Most people are just running to the entrance of (say); the “new investment that promises more than the market” maze, or the “crypto money” maze, without any sense for the history of the industry, the players in the maze, the casualties of the past, and the innovations that are likely to move walls and change assumptions.

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-coleman-1464922/ (I think)

2. https://a16z.com/2018/07/12/mentors-mentees/