Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

My fav read this year by-far. Some notes I made while reading:

- Humans and machines aka centeaurs are the ultimate combos that will be spawned and dominate the planet.
-AI is good at tactics and pattern recognition although humans excel at strategy.
- Savants and prodigies are just pattern matchers and things that break their patterns completely fuck them up.
- Understanding when you're pattern matching is critical. Things like chess, golf and tennis are easy to become exceptional because you have clear, fast feedback loops with binary outcomes.
- Things like business are far more complex and are called wicked domains because they can reinforce the wrong lessons.
- The essence of success is finding your own voice and being authentic at the highest levels.
- Designing an organisation requires careful principles that promote flexibility and paradoxes from top to down.
- Remove your ego and take a higher order view of whatever you're doing of maximal results.

I worry about how much Epstein's writing appeals to me since it often feels like confirming biases and suspicions I already harbour. But if you've ever spent any time invested deeply in long-term development (sports, kids, yourself), so many of the topics covered in Range are likely real issues you've encountered. Do I specialize early, am I missing out by not committing down one path, should I even bother with some interest that isn't directly applicable to my work or field of study? There's a lot of pop psych about head-start approaches to development but not much which validates what you come to realize with age is still a valid and useful path to success: breadth and experimentation.

The next time some coach or trainer tells you how imperative early specialization is, this is the book that will help you feel more comfortable at dealing with a culture hellbent on being first rather than growing into skill and talent.

Really interesting readings: in a world of hyper specialisation, the author claims that problems can be solved easily when the solver has heterogenous experiences, using strong scientific evidence.

That happens because a part from some sports and disciplines, the world do not provide any direct and immediate feedback to our actions.

It made me reflect on the fact that society always pushes for single domain expertise, while young people should experiment as much as possibile, without the urge of “finishing their passion”

Highly suggested!