Hacker News Reader

Comment by irjustin | Hacker News Reader

I've had a going theory on this - that it's a yoyo between generalization and specialization.

A particular topic starts with generalists but as time progresses and stability (i.e. a path worth pursuing) becomes apparent, specialization is needed to eek out more performance gains.

Then after a while, that particular area gets disrupted because there's a fundamental shift in landscape and the cycle repeats because the landscape is new to everyone. Many times this new landscape was brought on because a specialist applied a specific finding to a new, larger group. Then generalists help build that new space.

Maybe this is obvious...

View on HN

Pardon me for a bad (and generalist) habit. I’m not correcting your spelling for any reason other than to give you a free Scrabble tip: it’s eke.

And yep, you’re spot on.

I had no idea, good to know!

ah thanks! i'll keep my error for posterity

This is the most pleasantly written spelling correction I have ever seen.

In economic theory this is well known, and related to S-curves. First innovation (requires integration, which requires generalists/people spanning disciplines), then specialization and price war / commoditization

Interesting. So, as the s-curve begins to climb up and systems demand specialists, then, is it the case that they'd be paid more and hired at higher levels than generalists?

Which is to say, specialists tend to get hired once stability is achieved but also tend to capture more value / status than the generalists that helped the system navigate the s-curve?

Alternatively, are all senior hires at stable systems like FAANGs, specialists? Even if they're generalists, do they get valued less than them: May be hired at Staff level instead of Senior Staff or above?

Specialists need to be trained or train themselves. This is only really achieved by on the job training or very in depth courses. So ultimately, you would hire good generalists and get them trained on the job to specialize in the field.

Nobody is born a specialist. Universities do produce some but it's research, not the same as development and deployment.

And you need generalists as well as multiple field specialists to not get locked in a quibble over comma or a comfortable but overcomplicated and bad solution.

So in this context, do you think generalists are needed to set high level strategy and specialists needed to execute it? If so, would this imply that generalists would be a better fit for senior roles?

> but also tend to capture more value / status than the generalists that helped the system navigate the s-curve?

Are you assuming that being a specialist in a mature market always makes you more money than being an early player? I don't think that's always the case, there are many stories in the news of early employees of Silicon Valley companies who are now multi-millionaires just because they were in early. E.g. one of them IIRC is the cook who was in charge of preparing meals for the early Google team.

Generally agreed, but you're looking at stable FAANGs.

If you look at startups, for the most part, need lots of senior generalists who have a can-do attitude to 'just figure it out'.

Ideally, those generalists get rewarded w/ stock (side stepping the trigger topic on purpose) because they joined close to the ground floor. Most startups don't need and/or can't afford specialists until around Series B. Again ideally, if you needed a specialist early, you've got one on the founding team.

Many exceptions to the above statement, but it fits this topic's narrative.

True. I think every team needs both generalists and specialists to complement each others qualities. For example, my manager is kinda specialists and he is great at solving problems in his domains. But then I put my generalist ideas and solution is sometimes way simpler than what a specialists was trying. The reverse is also true. So a balance in team is needed.

I've been wondering something like this lately in relation to apparent species die-offs - we view and catalogue numbers in a timeframe that makes sense on an immediate human scale.

What if species have always gone through collapse/regrowth cycles and we happen to be viewing things through a too finely-focused lens that skews interpretation?

I'm not trying to make light of Humankind's horrific environmental impact, rather checking that we're not simply missing a fundamental natural law and so misinterpreting things.

This came to the fore of my mind particularly recently, listening to a podcast wherein part was talking about a rebound in the population of Peregrine Falcons, with them taking up homes across London.

- ed lol at me - 'taking up homes across London' sounds like the falcons are gentrifying. I meant, obviously, 'their populations are growing across London'.

The key is right their in evolution - adaptation.

These days I’m far less interested in what skills someone has. I’m far more interested to see if they have a track record of being able to adapt to changing circumstances. I’d much rather have someone who has shown they can adapt - or better still, will embrace the chaos openly :)

You don’t want to have everyone like that - you need a few “slow and steady wins the race” types to keep fundamental stuff going too. But I know which side of that equation I’d rather be on :)

Does it mean the roles of husband and wife, which were specialized before, are generalized now due to unstable marriages?

I know you’re being downvoted but wouldn’t this be indicative of an unstable economy not an unstable marriage?

E.g., both parties may have to work and do household duties because a one-salary household is much harder to manage financially now due to wages, lack of employment stability etc.

This is touched on in "Beyond the 80/20 principle".

Much like your example, though I think it said specialisation itself can offer up new generalist opportunities, so internal forces as well as external shifts.

One of my favourite books of late.

And once in a while, a really large disruption in all areas causes a mass extinction where all specialists are wiped out, and only a few generalists rebuild the new environment on their own.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com