Generalist vs Specialist
I was at the bar the other night with some friends and met several of their friends for the first time. In the course of the standard introductory small talk (what do you do, where are you from, how did you meet the other people at this table) I surprised the whole table when I described having worked as a mechanical engineer, software developer, product owner, project manager, and most recently director of a non-profit.
They each had a more traditional path — one field, start to finish. A nurse, a veterinarian. The idea that I’d worked across four careers was foreign to them.
For thousands of years, being a generalist was superior to being a specialist. I was listening to the podcast (Founders # 62), covering the autobiography of Ben Franklin, and the number of times that he switched careers or professions drew a parallel to my situation. Ben also seemingly had a couple of simple conversations with an individual, was offered a job in a new career. In one instance he was offered to become a clerk and keep a man’s books because he could read and write.
In contrast, after the Industrial Revolution, specificity became the name of the game. We have moved to an ever more global and interconnected society where our survival no longer depends on dozens of people but thousands or hundreds of thousands. This new found efficiency in resource management means that not only can you choose to just be a veterinarian, but you could choose to only work with dogs and cats, while still making a living.
And now society has moved into the AI era. Advanced machines are now, reliably enough, answering questions and doing tasks that once took years of diligent study. This poses an interesting question: where on the spectrum from generalist to specialist will society land?