In the video below, author David Epstein explains why being a specialist is generally (see what we did there ?) a bad idea. Conventional wisdom is that specializing in a subcategory offers the best path to both personal and financial success. For example:
- an engineer focusing only on bridge construction
- an mathematician becoming a financial quant
- a computer coder becoming an expert on one language
In todays world, specialties are expensive and repetitive making them ideal candidates for automation:
- Artificial Intelligence can now do a much better job of detecting breast cancer than specialized doctors
- Traffic police are replaced with photo-radar and red-light cameras
- Computer Firewall security experts are replaced with deep learning systems that detect and connect patterns far better than a human can
People that specialize usually rely on processes: connect nut #1 to bolt #2 and turn left. Specialists often perform tasks.
In contrast, generalists work on strategy that can be applied to many different scenarios. An IT Generalist can figure out how to install a kitchen faucet using the same strategies they use to configure a DNS Server:
- perform some basic research
- watch some YouTube video demonstrations
- layout all of the parts and make sure everything is in place
- start the work
Watch this interesting short 3 minute interview with author David Epstein on the topic:
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