The future does not belong to the deepest specialist or the broadest generalist. It belongs to people who can execute across the functions where there is the most friction.
John — Excellent article. I learned a great deal about your background I didn’t know, although you shared much of it in our neighborly interactions.
I really liked your “description of work.” It left me thinking the AI had less to do with the job losses in the technology sector since the pandemic than a fuller realization of the Internet and its impact on work. My first job out of grad school (MS in Management) was as business manager for an R&D project between Carnegie Mellon University and IBM. A small team of about 20 computer scientists designed, build and deployed the first fully scalable network. As I understand it, it’s still in operation on campus and dorms and in one form or another around the world. The director of the program asked me my first day if I understood the Internet. I told him I didn’t, but I understood how to use it. He described it as “transportation innovation recursing on itself.” Huh? WTF!
He went onto explain that transportation technology was all about moving people and things faster and more efficiently from one place to another. That it began with “fixed networks” (train tracks) from fixed designations to other fixed designations. But when computing technology merged with communications technology, it became possible move experiences to people, instead of people to experiences. Of course, long before computers were networked, transportation had already succeeded “individualizing” transportation. Maximizing personal choices around “what”, “when” and “where” people wanted to travel. My own family migrated from the east coast in 1949 (before I was born) with my mother ant two older brothers taking the train to Sacramento and my father driving a relatively new car across country — only 80 years after the completion of the trans-continental railroad and before the completion of the national highway system.
Your description also caused me to reflect on the evolution of management. My studies went as far back as Peter the Great of Russia. He lived and ruled in the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries. He is most known for modernizing Prussia, the Russian Navy and Russian Army. His success was due to being highly disciplined and extremely well organized. One of the realities had to deal with was his empire was comprised of many different cultures and languages. In fact, no common language. That didn’t stop him. He compartmentalized and routinized to great success. This necessarily required strict hierarchies. Sound familiar? I know from my own experience in high tech that designers, programmers, product marketers, etc. often think inside their own silos — their own cultures. Those techniques were used by those who brought us the Industrial Revolution. Think about how structured your work was until the Pandemic turned everything upside down.
I was stunned in 1988 when I joined Sun Microsystems and had the opportunity to move back to the Bay Area from Western Pennsylvania. I was part of a focused marketing and sales support group for the Higher Education Market. This group was one of many focused on specific market segments (e.g., Geographic Information Systems, Engineering, Finance, etc.). They only hired people who were experts in their particular market segment. But it didn’t matter how much knowledge or experience we had, we still had to bring “special deals” back to our managers for approval (the hierarchy). I designed a model that provided framework around the company’s target profit margin and how far each marketing segment manager could go with discounts and “special deals” to both grow the business AND as a “market segment” stay within the company’s profit targets. Wow, did that threaten the entrenched management team. I was invited to even present my model to the company CFO, Bill Riduchel (sp?), the CEOs former Harvard B School professor. He said he was impressed with the model and stated that this kind of analysis was not done anywhere in the company. The more important question was: “Why the F not?” I left the company shortly after that. What was suppose to be one of the leading companies in tech if not American business was so laden with 17th century thinking, it was clearly not for me.
My point is this, I think what you’re describing has less to do with AI and more to do with some external event (global pandemic) forcing changes in behavior that were already available to society, but due to our own habits we never really explored them until forced to. My small professional services firm was routinely engaging employees and clients via teleconferencing and email in the 1990s, well ahead of video conferencing. We learned that we could hire the best talent and NOT have to move them to where I lived and worked to have a successful company — 20 years before it became fashionable because of the pandemic.
I’m not denying the important impact of technology like AI on the today’s work. But I think it’s important to understand the true nature of these changes and not scapegoat an amazing technology like AI to hide the entrenched thinking of most of American business management.
I like the way you write and will continue to follow your ideas.
Terrific commentary, Michael, and thanks so much for your interpretation of what's happening here within role consolidation. I agree with you, I don't think role consolidation is happening uniquely because of AI, but when you look at the other three forces (democratization of specialization, AI empowering novices), it's the collection of these three forces that are driving much of the change in how we work and organize.
Thanks again for all of your thoughtful comments. I'm excited to continue to chat with you about this topic.
John — Excellent article. I learned a great deal about your background I didn’t know, although you shared much of it in our neighborly interactions.
I really liked your “description of work.” It left me thinking the AI had less to do with the job losses in the technology sector since the pandemic than a fuller realization of the Internet and its impact on work. My first job out of grad school (MS in Management) was as business manager for an R&D project between Carnegie Mellon University and IBM. A small team of about 20 computer scientists designed, build and deployed the first fully scalable network. As I understand it, it’s still in operation on campus and dorms and in one form or another around the world. The director of the program asked me my first day if I understood the Internet. I told him I didn’t, but I understood how to use it. He described it as “transportation innovation recursing on itself.” Huh? WTF!
He went onto explain that transportation technology was all about moving people and things faster and more efficiently from one place to another. That it began with “fixed networks” (train tracks) from fixed designations to other fixed designations. But when computing technology merged with communications technology, it became possible move experiences to people, instead of people to experiences. Of course, long before computers were networked, transportation had already succeeded “individualizing” transportation. Maximizing personal choices around “what”, “when” and “where” people wanted to travel. My own family migrated from the east coast in 1949 (before I was born) with my mother ant two older brothers taking the train to Sacramento and my father driving a relatively new car across country — only 80 years after the completion of the trans-continental railroad and before the completion of the national highway system.
Your description also caused me to reflect on the evolution of management. My studies went as far back as Peter the Great of Russia. He lived and ruled in the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries. He is most known for modernizing Prussia, the Russian Navy and Russian Army. His success was due to being highly disciplined and extremely well organized. One of the realities had to deal with was his empire was comprised of many different cultures and languages. In fact, no common language. That didn’t stop him. He compartmentalized and routinized to great success. This necessarily required strict hierarchies. Sound familiar? I know from my own experience in high tech that designers, programmers, product marketers, etc. often think inside their own silos — their own cultures. Those techniques were used by those who brought us the Industrial Revolution. Think about how structured your work was until the Pandemic turned everything upside down.
I was stunned in 1988 when I joined Sun Microsystems and had the opportunity to move back to the Bay Area from Western Pennsylvania. I was part of a focused marketing and sales support group for the Higher Education Market. This group was one of many focused on specific market segments (e.g., Geographic Information Systems, Engineering, Finance, etc.). They only hired people who were experts in their particular market segment. But it didn’t matter how much knowledge or experience we had, we still had to bring “special deals” back to our managers for approval (the hierarchy). I designed a model that provided framework around the company’s target profit margin and how far each marketing segment manager could go with discounts and “special deals” to both grow the business AND as a “market segment” stay within the company’s profit targets. Wow, did that threaten the entrenched management team. I was invited to even present my model to the company CFO, Bill Riduchel (sp?), the CEOs former Harvard B School professor. He said he was impressed with the model and stated that this kind of analysis was not done anywhere in the company. The more important question was: “Why the F not?” I left the company shortly after that. What was suppose to be one of the leading companies in tech if not American business was so laden with 17th century thinking, it was clearly not for me.
My point is this, I think what you’re describing has less to do with AI and more to do with some external event (global pandemic) forcing changes in behavior that were already available to society, but due to our own habits we never really explored them until forced to. My small professional services firm was routinely engaging employees and clients via teleconferencing and email in the 1990s, well ahead of video conferencing. We learned that we could hire the best talent and NOT have to move them to where I lived and worked to have a successful company — 20 years before it became fashionable because of the pandemic.
I’m not denying the important impact of technology like AI on the today’s work. But I think it’s important to understand the true nature of these changes and not scapegoat an amazing technology like AI to hide the entrenched thinking of most of American business management.
I like the way you write and will continue to follow your ideas.
Terrific commentary, Michael, and thanks so much for your interpretation of what's happening here within role consolidation. I agree with you, I don't think role consolidation is happening uniquely because of AI, but when you look at the other three forces (democratization of specialization, AI empowering novices), it's the collection of these three forces that are driving much of the change in how we work and organize.
Thanks again for all of your thoughtful comments. I'm excited to continue to chat with you about this topic.