Thinking: The leaders who run Silicon Valley, while focused, tend to be generalists. They're T-shaped, but not *the* domain expert. If true, why don't specialists run SV? Maybe: generalists can convene across disciplines & networks—bridging capital, talent, & opportunity.
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Replying to @eriktorenberg
I like this question when contrasted with: why is it specialists who make the greatest intellectual & creative leaps? Historically, people like Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Picasso, etc. Still mostly true, though small teams are becoming more common in breakthrough conceptual work
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @eriktorenberg
I don’t know a ton about Einstein, but Newton, Darwin, and Picasso were anything but specialists. Newton: theology, history, alchemy, optics, physics. Darwin: geology, coral, orchids, human emotions, worms. Picasso: sculptor, painter, printmaker, set designer.
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Specialist/generalist may not be quite the right axis for this distinction... I think it may be more like "is depth driven by many problems that loom visibly and can kill you quickly, or by a smaller range of problems with many elusive features?"
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"Specialist" may still be a reasonable label for people working under the latter conditions, but only if you entirely let go of the idea of discrete fields and instead think only in terms of problems
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