Ask HN: Better to be pretty good at a few things or really good at one thing?

If you want to be an entrepreneur you have to be good at as much as you can handle. Not just your technology stack, but marketing, sales, design, finance, recruitment, training, writing, etc.

If you want to be an employee, then by all means, be top 1% of whatever technology you want and you'll always be able to find a job.

I think this really depends on your goal. Do you want to excel in a particular field? If so, you should pick one thing, and focus on it. Do one thing well.

Being a jack of all trades, and master of none is more suitable for managers.

I wrote a blog post about being an expert at something, if you're interested: http://philipthrasher.com/2010/04/11/want-to-be-an-expert.ht...

I feel like I am a jack-of-all trades type of person too. Many people say that is a disadvantage, but I recently read an article on entrepreneur.com about some famous guru saying a CEO of a startup needs to be good at a lot of things instead of great at one thing. Made me feel a lot better....

Generalists succeed as entrepreneurs (a Stanford study): http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/entrep_lazear_gene...

I'm definitely a jack-of-all-trades but a master-of-none. Sometimes I wish I were much better at certain things, but for the most part, I enjoy having a wide range of competencies.

This is entirely dependent on what you do and what your goals are.

Generally, I think it's better to be really good at one thing. However, this wouldn't hold true in certain roles (think Enterprise Architect, Systems Consultant, ...). In different roles, it can be extremely valuable to have a broad, not necessarily deep, understanding of the various parts in play.

What are your objectives?

Being really good at one thing almost always involves being pretty good at a few things.

Leonardo da Vinci has shown that it's possible to master more than one thing.

(mind you, how many Leonardo da Vinci's are there in the world?)

For an entrepreneur: M-shaped: really good at a few things, and not afraid of many other things that need doing.

Depends on what you are really good at.