Credentialism is dying, and we already know that below the API careers are being rebased on algorithmic gamesmanship, ratings and the like. This is probably going to be better than industrial on-the-clock laboring conditions in the end, even if transients sometime seem worse.
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But those hoping above-the-API careers will become wonderfully imaginative and sui generis works of art are going to be disappointed. Software eating the world does not magically pump you up with imagination at the same time that it fragments the 9-5/ages 18-65 grind.
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What has become clear in the ~20 years since
@DanielPink tagged the trend in Free Agent Nation is that the majority of people end up on career paths just as formulaic as old Organization Man paths. They are just procedurally generated rather than life-clock-driven.1 reply 0 retweets 8 likesShow this thread -
Tim Ferriss’s 4HWW formula was just the first of many. Instead of kids being programmed by daycare-prison schools and then cast into interchangeable-parts specs by colleges, people adopt cliched personalities by imitation and get on derisked career paths in synchronized swarms.
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If organization-man-era people were derisively called sheeple, we could apply the term swarmple to procedurally generated bot-like career paths. The behaviors are perhaps a little richer, varied, and complex due to technological flexibility, but no more imaginative.
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That said, the big difference is that the upside of bringing originality and imagination to everything you do has gone through the roof, even as formulaic patterns saturate via imitation faster and faster. The half-life of a formula like 4HWW is falling.
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It’s not quite a Ponzi scheme, but the bulk of the potential of a formula will accrue to the first cohort to adopt it. So understand the formulas you see being swarmed all around you, but remain aware of the shelf-life, and keep an eye on the expiry date.
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Replying to @breaking_smart
You can already begin to see this with the newsletters-as-careers trend; after the first cohort (e.g. Stratechery, Morning Brew, theSkimm) it’s getting much much harder to crack; the half life is really evident
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Yep, that’s why I very thought hard about breaking the existing formula for @artofgig. The world doesn’t need a 15th ersatz @stratechery 
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