My Content List #4, Monday 6/10

4 min readJun 10, 2019

The debate over depth vs. breadth — specialization vs. general knowledge , “mile-deep and inch-wide vs. mile-wide and inch-deep”, call it what you will — is one that tantalizes many a millennial mind (including my own). How do we know when to zone in on just one skill/industry/ in our careers and when relegate other interests? Should a startup seeking investors look for the VC who is a domain expert or one with broader industry knowledge, and how about from the other side of the table? Limitless questions reverberate from this debate.

Econ 101 will teach you that specialists always have a competitive advantage, a thought which underscores/rationalizes the market economy and trade. And many career advisors will suggest something like “the sooner you determine what your ‘specialty area’ is, the better off you’ll be from a career track perspective” (I know I heard that more times than I can count…)

But as I’ve been working my way through Tom Friedman’s Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations — and, you know, just living life — I’m increasingly wondering whether that advice holds true. As Friedman explains, we’re living in a world of dynamic interconnectedness, of ideas and technologies that radically transcend subject areas. Those who aren’t able to grapple with the pace of acceleration will stall out and fall behind. (I’ll share more on this book in future posts because I LOVE it.) My main takeaway thus far is this:

In order to thrive (because no one wants just to “survive”), it’s critical to strive for lifelong interdisciplinary learning and development— the ability to be perspicacious from a latticework of standpoints, drawing on individual AND collective experiences to build+apply one’s skills and inform+apply one’s perspective.

THAT’s how you become a modern day “renaissance” man/woman, polymath, swiss-army knife, etc.… being versatile and dynamic, I believe, are key ingredients for success.

So what does that mean in practicality? For one, as my favorite English teacher once said, “start reading more five years ago.” Prioritize which topics interest you most and run them to ground through your own explorations. Surround yourself with as eclectic a group as you can — we grow/develop most as we’re exposed to diversity of thought. And as for career building, the more you know about what intrinsically interests/motivates you — which you can only find out from your experiences — the easier such choices as which job to take will be come. All I know is if you’re taking a job solely because you’re risk averse (i.e. alternatives aren’t “safe, secure, or predictable” enough), you’re doing it wrong.

This intro is a bit curt — I could expound upon the pros/cons of specialization for much longer — but wanted to give y’all a little taste, but I’m only scratching the surface. See below the break for this week’s Content List…