Foxes v.s. Hedgehogs

Should you be a generalist or a specialist?

In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith champions the division of labour as the primary source of productivity, using the vivid example of a pin manufacturing factory: “One person draws out the wire, another straightens it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it.” By specialising in one task, each worker becomes highly skilled at what they do, generating massive efficiency gains in the process. Output per worker rockets upwards and the factory becomes a well-oiled machine, producing millions of pins a day.

Today, this process of specialisation is taken for granted and is ingrained into the way most people think about their life. From a very young age, we are asked “what do you want to be when you grow up?”. Most of us may be able to dodge this question until late high school or even after entering college, but as we get older we are nudged more and more forcefully into picking a single option. Once you land your first job, this process of specialisation only accelerates until one day, you find that you are an expert in pin straightening techniques.

I recently read three books that drew attention to this focus on specialisation in our modern culture: Range by David Epstein, Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock and Originals by Adam Grant. I wanted to share some of the key…