Maybe I didn't understand the article correctly, but are there any people, especially on HN, that identify as specialists? By that I mean, they only know one skill, and that's it, they don't consider themselves T shaped.
The drawback was that they were pretty much only interested in that specialty. They might be curious about other things, but they were genuinely happiest doing what they loved.
Once a client demanded that we worked with some encryption framework that required open ports. A delegation of the crypto company had to come to spend the day and hold some meetings because the networks people couldn't take my word for it.
Anyway, whatever the reason, for the company it's interesting to have both the right people and the right policies.
I'm not sure what made that people not even wanting to take a look at firewall permissions. It was obvious that the ports were closed. Actually I learned that my workstation had a public IP address, totally useless anyway because all ports were closed from the outside.
Like a coder who does embedded systems but also knows a bit about how to write a webpage and how databases work.
All I can do at decent level is computer related stuff, call me one trick pony.
Meanwhile I know people who are perfectly capable making money of truck driving, drilling, a lot of construction related work, simple mechanics, and a lot of more.
https://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/ (might not be the original source of the idea though)
Sometimes it's a true passion for a field, other times it's because there would be so much friction switching tools or learning the internal standards and tools of a business. For instance programming means not only coding, but also familiarity with the tools, libraries, and coding standards of a coding shop, which take time to learn.
Sometimes it's just due to human nature, that larger organizations become silo'd, and practicing two skills means navigating the politics of two silo's, twice the number of meetings, etc. Also, if you belong to silo A, and help out with B, then the manager of A gets annoyed with you. So in a sense specialization is a way to find a comfort zone in a typical human organization, even in what are considered to be good workplaces.
I specialize in solving problems.
I've never found anyone with my capacity for researching, understanding and quickly putting together a plan to address some exigency.
Whether that be triaging an issue in an opaque production environment or crafting a marketing plan to help tell the story of what my local community does well, that's what I specialize in.
I don't write for the benefit of others, but I do write for the benefit of me, to keep that skill sharp.
I'll tell you my secret sauce, which is being gifted with some intelligence and applying oneself relentlessly. It's a straightforward recipe for success and it's only remarkable in an ocean of mediocrity.