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There is an additional attribute that goes a long way in staying an expert in a changing world - humility or acknowledging that you do not or cannot know the f

There is an additional attribute that goes a long way in staying an expert in a changing world - humility or acknowledging that you do not or cannot know the future. PG hints at this when he says.. "...admit you have no idea what the right direction is, and try instead to be super sensitive to the winds of change...". It is also paraphrased quite well in the maxim of "Stay hungry, stay foolish" popularized by Jobs. But humility that stems from ignorance is at odds with popular expectations of an expert. The problem is what worked in the past may not work in the future. Being sensitive to changes in the world around you, requires you to momentarily stop being an expert and look at the world from the eyes of a novice or beginner. This is not only hard but sometimes impossible to do because of how we change as we acquire new knowledge. [2] So the trick is to be somewhat schizophrenic - being able to simultaneously view the world as an expert with the fresh thinking of a beginner or a novice. [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8754334 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8754334

waps 12y ago
> There is an additional attribute that goes a long way in staying an expert in a changing world - humility or acknowledging that you do not or cannot know the future. Sadly there's one rather important setting where this does not work at all : Interviewing with a non-technical interviewer. Like one has to do for pretty much any non-individual contributor job at all but the very largest companies. I keep having this impulse and I find it actually convinces people you don't know what you're talking about. The more algorithms you've seen fail spectacularly at prediction, the more capable you are (especially if you figured out why), but the less capable you appear. Furthermore people always believe they can do better by just looking at the data and going with their gut feeling. This is not true, I've only seen people do that in a few cases. And I've seen people screw it up royally in more than a few cases. I think the successes were lucky guesses, because while they looked like they knew what they were doing, I could never get a decent response to the simple question : your arguments work just as well for 5 other predictions one might make, so why this one ? So I'm forced to doubt there. Either they knew more than they were willing to admit (one was also a political figure, so ...), or they were lucky guesses.
AndyNemmity 12y ago
If you are always becoming an expert at a different thing, the second you step into a new domain you "look at the world from the eyes of a novice" without becoming "somewhat schizophrenic." I feel like we both took the same things from the article, but we come at them from very different paths.
powertry 12y ago
This assumes that the goal is to be Jobs, and I completely agree with the assessment that you need to be schizophrenic. I would like to point out, the expectation is to be detail oriented(execution/expert) while leading a larger org macro goal (learning/strategy). In the right contexts with appropriate resources, this can & does magnify personalities and outputs!
einvalue 12y ago
> So the trick is to be somewhat schizophrenic - being able to simultaneously view the world as an expert with the fresh thinking of a beginner or a novice. You already mentioned this, but this is extremely at odds with how experts are valued, especially by non-experts. People want answers -- not necessarily painful truths -- and ostensibly that's what they pay for. "What do you mean you're not sure? You're supposed to be an expert!" This trick might work when you're a Jobs figure (or a Paul Graham, or a YC company) and you don't have non-experts to answer to. For everyone else, staying hungry and foolish means you'll be seen as hungry and foolish, and the market values you as a hungry fool, not an expert.

waps 12y ago

> There is an additional attribute that goes a long way in staying an expert in a changing world - humility or acknowledging that you do not or cannot know the future. Sadly there's one rather important setting where this does not work at all : Interviewing with a non-technical interviewer. Like one has to do for pretty much any non-individual contributor job at all but the very largest companies. I keep having this impulse and I find it actually convinces people you don't know what you're talking about. The more algorithms you've seen fail spectacularly at prediction, the more capable you are (especially if you figured out why), but the less capable you appear. Furthermore people always believe they can do better by just looking at the data and going with their gut feeling. This is not true, I've only seen people do that in a few cases. And I've seen people screw it up royally in more than a few cases. I think the successes were lucky guesses, because while they looked like they knew what they were doing, I could never get a decent response to the simple question : your arguments work just as well for 5 other predictions one might make, so why this one ? So I'm forced to doubt there. Either they knew more than they were willing to admit (one was also a political figure, so ...), or they were lucky guesses.

AndyNemmity 12y ago

If you are always becoming an expert at a different thing, the second you step into a new domain you "look at the world from the eyes of a novice" without becoming "somewhat schizophrenic." I feel like we both took the same things from the article, but we come at them from very different paths.

powertry 12y ago

This assumes that the goal is to be Jobs, and I completely agree with the assessment that you need to be schizophrenic. I would like to point out, the expectation is to be detail oriented(execution/expert) while leading a larger org macro goal (learning/strategy). In the right contexts with appropriate resources, this can & does magnify personalities and outputs!

einvalue 12y ago

> So the trick is to be somewhat schizophrenic - being able to simultaneously view the world as an expert with the fresh thinking of a beginner or a novice. You already mentioned this, but this is extremely at odds with how experts are valued, especially by non-experts. People want answers -- not necessarily painful truths -- and ostensibly that's what they pay for. "What do you mean you're not sure? You're supposed to be an expert!" This trick might work when you're a Jobs figure (or a Paul Graham, or a YC company) and you don't have non-experts to answer to. For everyone else, staying hungry and foolish means you'll be seen as hungry and foolish, and the market values you as a hungry fool, not an expert.