
The Polymath Playbook - daretorant
https://salman.io/posts/polymath-playbook/
======
trentnix
_A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a
hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a
wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act
alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization
is for insects._

— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

~~~
MaxBarraclough
> Specialization is for insects.

Was going strong right up until this.

Figured he was going for _jack of all trades, master of one_. Attacking
specialization outright is just silly.

~~~
ampersandy
In context, the quote is actually from a list of principles/observations the
character has written in a notebook. I do not read it as an argument that
mastering a skill/field is bad, but simply an observation that never bothering
to learn new skills would be rather boring.

------
thinkingkong
So under this definition I too am a polymath but so are most of my colleagues.
Some of the smartest engineers Ive ever met have wildly different hobbies
outside of engineering or software. Boating. Baking. Triathlons. Music. But
the most successful people do one thing, 100% in an all consuming way before
flipping into another. Theyre the best bakers. Have sailed the furhest
distances, written the best songs, and posted the best times.

Another way to think about it is “you can have anything you want, but not
_everything_ you want”. Choose accordingly.

~~~
woofie11
This is the way to do it. Done well, a 5-year deep dive can make you a world-
class expert in most things. Do that, and then move onto the next thing,
bringing that skillset along.

It goes faster every time too. It turns out there are lots of overlaps. Linear
algebra and differential equations are (roughly) the same in electronic
engineering, quantum mechanics, or mechanical engineering, and where they're
not is where you often bring in unique insights.

The people who struggle are the ones who go shallow. A half-dozen HN articles
a day.

~~~
kiba
_The people who struggle are the ones who go shallow. A half-dozen HN articles
a day._

It's not really a half dozen HN articles a day. It's the _shallow_ absorption
of HN articles that's only 5 or 10 minutes top per article.

And then you only remembered 10% top of the article you absorbed.

Whereas you select and absorb two HN article for a week, at twenty minutes
each article per day, you'll retain more and makes connections you otherwise
wouldn't see.

------
motohagiography
What I would add to this is a caveat and a model. The caveat is that
individual specialization doesn't scale, and so long as you are just talent
solving problems for someone, your employer will be the ceiling and bottleneck
on the good you can do in the world.

The model is that as a polymath, your job is to scale. You don't know as much
as specialists, but you have the unique ability to appreciate the value of
what they do and this provides a natural advantage in leading them and scaling
their talents.

Value is the act of bringing something from one place to another. As a
polymath, you have multiple repositories that are relatively deep, which you
can trade ideas between. However, what I advise polymaths is that if there is
one skill you should cultivate, it's smuggling, because a lot of people who
are good at one thing choose gatekeeping to ensure its status, and the biggest
challenge you will have is getting value past gatekeepers and the people with
a stake in their decisions. To succeed as a polymath, you should learn to live
as a smuggler, fugitive, insurgent, and pariah. If nothing else, it keeps the
needs of others central to your thinking.

Sure, you could just live comfortably as a pet and a curiosity, stuck in
someone elses cubicle, solving problems for peanut tokens and scattered
applause, but if that's not satisfying, the tools to change it are already in
your hands.

------
_nalply
Attention: Nerd Snipe.

The Ikigai graph should be painted on a torus because we need to see two
additional intersections. Let's try to name them:

\- What you LOVE and What you can be PAID FOR: Delightful Bullshit Job

\- What you are GOOD AT and What the world NEEDS: Useful Self-Sacrifice

Or do you have a better idea?

And: how should we color them to have nice, meaningful shades of colors?

Edit: Thanks for BlackFingolfin to point out that a sphere's not good enough.

~~~
emmanueloga_
this made me laugh so hard... brilliant observation :-D

Here's a pseudo-symmetrical Venn diagram for four sets, as an alternative
representation :-) [1]

1:
[https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/VennSymmVari...](https://www.combinatorics.org/files/Surveys/ds5/VennSymmVariants.html#nonprime)

~~~
_nalply
Another variant with ovals:
[https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1261851180881174529](https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1261851180881174529)

------
croissants
> When I first began to study polymaths, I was excited to see a template for a
> life I didn’t know I was living. But when I started to embrace the polymath
> identity, my inner critics appeared. I wondered whether I’m even qualified
> to write about polymaths, let alone call myself one.

Then why not just go on cultivating diverse interests -- which is really what
this blog post is about, and which seems like a fine idea -- and sidestep all
of this "polymath" business? Why make it harder by picking the grandest label
you can find and then worrying about whether you qualify?

~~~
notahacker
Yep. Indeed you're better off _not_ picking the grand label even if it
perfectly suits you, because people are more likely to chuckle at your
pomposity if you start describing yourself as one (see also self-described
'intellectuals', 'geniuses' and 'ninjas') than be impressed.

It doesn't help that for much of the post the author seems to conflate the
concept of the Aristotle-type polymath making breakthroughs in multiple
unrelated fields with standard career paths [engineer, manager, teacher,
founder, advisor] and transferable career skills. All of which are entirely
worth pursuing without the dubious label.

~~~
Izkata
Between this and that [0], it popped into my head that we should just go
further and invent _polymodal_. Would specifically refer to the other
comment's "only one thing" deep dive.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808478](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808478)

------
albatross
I have been a generalist my whole life, and have struggled significantly to
translate this into a meaningful career. I have thrived in interdisciplinary
roles, but have always found myself carving them out once I have forced my way
through the door in a more specialized role.

Is it simply a disconnect between the hiring process and these sorts of
skillsets that is causing this issue, or something else?

I worked at a 3D printing startup and found myself liasing between hardware,
software, and materials teams (and sales... and marketing... and...) and was
the happiest I have been professionally at that time. I don't know where to
look for roles similar to this. Do they even exist?

Any advice?

~~~
vsskanth
Have you tried looking for Project/Program manager roles, maybe even DoD ?
They usually are a good fit for people with your skills

~~~
albatross
To some degree, yes. However, I've found there is often a chicken/egg problem
of needing experience in the role to be hired for it.

That said, it's been a few years since I looked at these,so maybe it's time to
reevaluate and maybe pursue a certification of some sort.

~~~
vsskanth
A friend of mine had the same problem. Got hired into a smaller startup that
was willing to take a chance on him and is now a program director

~~~
albatross
I'll adjust my search parameters. Thanks for the advice!

------
nomadtwin
Whole article resonates so thank you for putting that up. The word POLYMATH is
a little clunky for non-native speakers. If you were to ask people in the
streets the word GENERALIST is probably easier to understand. I experienced
that with a lot of words that tend to describe a certain type/trend/box. I'm
not advocating against the word just trying to raise awareness why there's
people out there that would rather simply break it down to "Generalist" and
Polymath will most likely be a niche word on a global scale.

~~~
webmaven
A polymath has multiple areas of specialization or expertise, a generalist has
(even more) multiple areas of competence. These aren't mutually exclusive.
Note the special case of the generalist with ONE area of expertise is the
"t-shaped" individual, which is probably a more appropriate baseline goal than
anything else. Although I am not sure how _domain_ knowledge intersects with
technical skills as a matter of strategy...

------
sradman
> The answer lies in modern society’s preference for specialization.

Yet modern society also has a preference for a broad liberal arts education.
Like bundling/unbundling and reductionism/synthesis, there seems to be an
ongoing ebb and flow between multi-disciplinary and specialized skills driven
by the value add.

------
monkeydust
Interesting read, would say a lot of good product managers have polymath
traits... Software design, understand how to sell , commercial, legal,
marketing...

~~~
tatar
I've always considered myself a jack of all trades and made the switch to
product management after being a designer for the last decade.

The switch felt almost fully natural, and I noticed that I have a very obvious
significant leg up from most of my peers, I'm easily 3-4x more productive
while working at the same pace as everyone.

------
smabie
Software development is an interesting field in that it is a lot less
specialized than others. It's pretty easy to bounce around doing completely
different work at each job. So far the field has resisted any sort of assembly
line model and I hope it remains that way. Some essay I read likened it to
classic gunsmiths: the tolerance is so tight, that a single craftsmen was
responsible for every part of the gun. The same is true for programming: you
can't just take a bunch of different libraries and "assemble" them together.
And if you try, the quality of the final product will undoubtedly be poor. I'm
looking at you, simple websites that take the entire memory space of 200
Commodore 64 computers put together!

~~~
znpy
> So far the field has resisted any sort of assembly line model

Are you sure? I mostly agree with this statement, however things like
scrum/devops and frameworks seems to be pushing in that direction in my
opinion

------
FredWFlintstone
I think biologically we evolve to be polymaths. Only after humans formed
complex societies we have opportunities that sustainably reward
specialization. And there is probably very little genetic reinforcement of
modern specialization. Don't have my own experience but from what I see,
family life of a polymath seems much more rewarding and with a lot of genetic
reinforcement. The Revenant might be a good example of 2 stages of evolving
human societies where one totally rewards Polymaths and in other you probably
want to start being a specialist.

------
chrisweekly
My ideal:

\- "jack of all trades, master of none"

\+ "jack of many trades, master of a few"

~~~
mikhailfranco
Yes, _master of none_ cannot get a job.

And even if the polymath does get a job, their new colleagues will not
understand them, or actively persecute them for having a broad approach.

------
ihm
> The lack of freedom might be a worthy sacrifice in exchange for job
> security. But therein lies the problem: few companies can actually guarantee
> long-term stability. Many workers already face ambiguity with their job
> security due to the impending effects of automation. Now, with the tornado
> of change brought about by the COVID pandemic, the brittleness of even large
> corporations’ stability has become apparent. So how do we survive these
> waves of change? Adaptability.

This starts out with a good analysis, but an approach that tried to change the
system rather than the individual-by-individual approach it proposes would be
so much more defective. We don’t just have to adapt to an increasingly brutal
labor market and society. We can change it!

------
geocrasher
There's a site called [https://puttylike.com/](https://puttylike.com/) that
calls it a "multipotentialite" and in the gal's Ted talk she makes us out to
be victims. That, I don't like- but I do like the premise of most of what
she's saying otherwise. Being a generalist only means you get to explore
whatever's fancy today, and because you've defined yourself as eternally
undefined, nobody generally cares.

~~~
em-bee
victims of what?

~~~
geocrasher
Victims of "the system" that prefers specialization.

------
motteboss
I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself
passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent
proficiency level. To go beyond that requires an obsession that doesn't appeal
to me. Once I reach 80 percent level I like to go off and do something totally
different; that probably explains the diversity of the Patagonia product like
- and why our versatile, multifaceted clothes are the most successful. -Yvon
Chouinard

~~~
BossingAround
> I've always thought of myself as an 80 percenter. I like to throw myself
> passionately into a sport or activity until I reach about an 80 percent
> proficiency level.

This is a very difficult thing to grasp as a beginner. As a beginner, you have
no idea where you are on the scale. You might be an "80-percenter" in React at
your company and discover that you know very little when you start applying
for senior front-end positions.

------
stevofolife
Thanks for sharing your sentiments. I tend to associate polymaths with the
Renaissance era. People like Da Vinci and Galilei are true polymaths. In
modern days Elon Musk is one. However I do think the word polymath is more
well-regarded/skilled than a generalist.

------
apfreerunner
It's best to follow a "T" approach, have a broad skillset but with enough
depth in one particular trade that can last economic downturns and for which
demand is inelastic.

~~~
BossingAround
From my experience, "T" approach is a lie. You get people who are just
generalists ("-" people).

"T" approach is FAANG's way of forcing people to dedicate 12h a day to their
engineering career both before they apply to get in, and after they get in to
advance.

------
daretorant
You’ve likely heard the saying: “A jack of all trades is a master of none.” It
warns against the futility of pursuing too many disciplines. Be a specialist,
or you’ll be nothing.

It may surprise you to learn there’s actually an extended version: “A jack of
all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
With a subtle addition, its meaning becomes inverted to tout the benefits of
being a polymath (a.k.a. generalist).

Why is the former so common, and the latter so unknown?

The answer lies in modern society’s preference for specialization. This essay
explores how specialization limits workers’ freedom, how the polymath approach
can offer a reprieve, and my own learnings exploring a multitude of pursuits.

~~~
nkozyra
I think it's a mistake to call a polymath a generalist. The concept of a
polymath is predicated on top notch knowledge and skill at multiple
disciplines.

Generalist implies breadth but not depth.

~~~
ralphstodomingo
That too was my only gripe with the article - solid and engaging writing, but
I was wincing every time polymath was mentioned. I feel like you could
substitute most uses of the word with just 'generalist' and the article would
have held together just as well.

