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I think there's an intermediate size where being a generalist is bad. I'm a generalist, and I experienced a similar situation -- I was extremely useful at the b

I think there's an intermediate size where being a generalist is bad. I'm a generalist, and I experienced a similar situation -- I was extremely useful at the beginning because I could do a fair job of the responsibilities of three or four specialists, but after a year and a half, there were three or four specialists who could collectively do a far better job than me. The amount of tasks which made sense for me to take on dwindled, and I wasn't really needed anymore. I don't regret it or hold a grudge, it was my intent to help build a team that was better than me alone, and I succeeded in that professional goal. I trained most of them to be able to do my job, and am proud of that accomplishment. But I suspect that once the company is at 100 people instead of 20, the budget and flexibility of positions will be such to allow generalists to be more practical again. Does that make sense? I think for a 10 person team, generalists are very useful, and for a 1000 person team, generalists can be tolerated and be very versatile members who can quickly switch between roles. But I think there is an intermediate point where the company goals are still very narrow but the team is big enough that generalists are only useful in a high level management role.

overgard 13y ago
Interesting. I see the framework of your point and I mostly agree, but I still think that even in this sort of awkward middle period, if you're legit good, they're not even going to consider getting rid of you as a generalist. For one thing, they're going to need someone to be able to jump in and help the specialists out with the larger picture. Not to mention that often your generalists end up becoming the specialists, after dealing with certain domains long enough. If we're talking about a startup of <100 people that is healthy, they're usually in "expand" mode. You don't get rid of useful people when you're in your expand mode unless they're a problem.
- 001sky 13y ago
  they're going to need someone to be able to jump in and help the specialists out with the larger picture Problem is, if you are a generalist (say) with <5 yes experience in total and 8 months at this firm? I'm not sure that works for anyone...in that situation. Although, I don't doubt there is more to the story. Just would be hesitant to jump to character over other consideratiosn without knowing (any, real) details.
  - alttab 13y ago
    Who is this straw man generalist? If you are even a moderately capable at many things that makes you a connector and a power broker. Without agency inside a larger organization, a generalist without enough situational acumen will fail to see their opportunities.
    - 001sky 13y ago
      The straw man is not the generalist being replaced; it is the "emeritus" advisor to the ceo job that is created out of thin air. Many young companies have execs that just don't scale as quickly as the company (for whatever reason...)[1]. Sometimes its just not teneble politically or practically for them to exert further influence, especially at the C-level. Co-founders and ex CEOs are often different, in that regards. Compare the trajectory of Jack Dorsey at Twitter to the engineer that did the original code, but was never promoted to CTO. (1) ie, You still can be a very effective "early employee" without being C-level material in your current compan. That doesn't imply lack fo competence in the work you did do; and frankly thats a reason many do change jobs.
  - overgard 13y ago
    For many popular technologies I think 5 years is pretty extreme. Most of them haven't even existed that long.
- neltnerb 13y ago
  That's fair. Mine was certainly an odd case, no question.
alexkorchinski 13y ago
Hi there - I wrote the article. This closely describes what what happened to me, although we didn't yet have the specialists to fill those roles (we did use agencies however). The two most notable points I left out of the post are that the company needed to cut costs (read between the lines there), and that there was meaningful blowback from the rest of the team when the CEO announced that I was being let go.
Dartanion7 13y ago
I don't agree with this, because even if you determine the generalist to be less efficient than a specialist for a given task, you still have to hire the specialist for that position, which takes time. So unless the generalist is simply incompetent -- which is a separate issue -- firing someone for being a "generalist" (which is kind of a meaningless term, anyway) in order to hire a specialist wouldn't make more sense than simply training up the generalist short of a flood of specialist applicants that could start fairly immediately.

overgard 13y ago

Interesting. I see the framework of your point and I mostly agree, but I still think that even in this sort of awkward middle period, if you're legit good, they're not even going to consider getting rid of you as a generalist. For one thing, they're going to need someone to be able to jump in and help the specialists out with the larger picture. Not to mention that often your generalists end up becoming the specialists, after dealing with certain domains long enough. If we're talking about a startup of <100 people that is healthy, they're usually in "expand" mode. You don't get rid of useful people when you're in your expand mode unless they're a problem.

001sky 13y ago
they're going to need someone to be able to jump in and help the specialists out with the larger picture Problem is, if you are a generalist (say) with <5 yes experience in total and 8 months at this firm? I'm not sure that works for anyone...in that situation. Although, I don't doubt there is more to the story. Just would be hesitant to jump to character over other consideratiosn without knowing (any, real) details.
- alttab 13y ago
  Who is this straw man generalist? If you are even a moderately capable at many things that makes you a connector and a power broker. Without agency inside a larger organization, a generalist without enough situational acumen will fail to see their opportunities.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    The straw man is not the generalist being replaced; it is the "emeritus" advisor to the ceo job that is created out of thin air. Many young companies have execs that just don't scale as quickly as the company (for whatever reason...)[1]. Sometimes its just not teneble politically or practically for them to exert further influence, especially at the C-level. Co-founders and ex CEOs are often different, in that regards. Compare the trajectory of Jack Dorsey at Twitter to the engineer that did the original code, but was never promoted to CTO. (1) ie, You still can be a very effective "early employee" without being C-level material in your current compan. That doesn't imply lack fo competence in the work you did do; and frankly thats a reason many do change jobs.
- overgard 13y ago
  For many popular technologies I think 5 years is pretty extreme. Most of them haven't even existed that long.
neltnerb 13y ago
That's fair. Mine was certainly an odd case, no question.

alexkorchinski 13y ago

Hi there - I wrote the article. This closely describes what what happened to me, although we didn't yet have the specialists to fill those roles (we did use agencies however). The two most notable points I left out of the post are that the company needed to cut costs (read between the lines there), and that there was meaningful blowback from the rest of the team when the CEO announced that I was being let go.

Dartanion7 13y ago

I don't agree with this, because even if you determine the generalist to be less efficient than a specialist for a given task, you still have to hire the specialist for that position, which takes time. So unless the generalist is simply incompetent -- which is a separate issue -- firing someone for being a "generalist" (which is kind of a meaningless term, anyway) in order to hire a specialist wouldn't make more sense than simply training up the generalist short of a flood of specialist applicants that could start fairly immediately.