Big picture thinking is not a skill. If you study any field of knowledge or industry you automatically get a big picture idea of what's going on. If you read a

Big picture thinking is not a skill. If you study any field of knowledge or industry you automatically get a big picture idea of what's going on. If you read a book you automatically get a big picture idea of the book. Anybody can do it, it's not talent, and it's not even learned, it's a basic human trait. The only thing you can say about the author is that he's knowledgeable about the industry. His speculations on what happened in 2014 is a reflection of his knowledge, not skill. Coding is a skill. If you just read a book on C++ without writing a line of code you gain a big picture understanding of C++, yet you lack the necessary skill to actually code. Like big picture thinking, anybody can learn a skill, but It takes far more time and discipline to actually gain a true skill then it does to see the big picture. I'll say one thing though, understanding the big picture is often all you need to bullshit other people into thinking you have a certain skill.