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I think you're overgeneralizing. The question he answered was "How do you make it in show business or whatever?" I think "whatever" was limited to performance s

I think you're overgeneralizing. The question he answered was "How do you make it in show business or whatever?" I think "whatever" was limited to performance skills. Comedy, drama; stage, radio; scripted, improvisational, that sort of thing. And performance is all about capturing and holding people's attention, so it makes sense that focusing on your skill is the most direct path to success. As opposed to, say, business, which is much more focused on social relationships, and where success is much more determined by who you know and who they know they can introduce you to. That's not to say his advice is good. Just that it should be interpreted as being intended for a particular industry.

stonecharioteer 4y ago
I love this quote by Martin, and I have always interpreted it as not only being good at your job but learning skills that might even be tangential. If you're a good developer, learn how to speak/write. At least one of these two things. Either speak at conferences and/or meetups, or write Blog articles. Practise, practise and practise writing or speaking about your work. If you cannot, then participate in communities where your opinion can be heard: GitHub through triaging, discussing improvement proposals to languages and/or frameworks you use. Become good at disassembling code, reading someone else's code and figuring out what it does without having to ask everything. These skills have helped my career more than the actual tech actually has, honestly. It got me my last two jobs. Every business is show business.