Generalists > Specialists (my bet for now)

Specialists optimize the known; generalists exploit the unknown.November 16, 2024

Specialists get better at what is already known. Generalists get useful when the map is incomplete. When I launched Pawbazaar, I combined e-commerce, pet care, and AI — fields that rarely talked to each other. Result: a 30% jump in customer satisfaction almost overnight. That is the generalist move. You see connections specialists miss because they live inside one domain. How I try to stay generalist in practice:

Keep exploring domains that don't obviously belong together.
Steal patterns from one industry and test them in another.
Bet when others hesitate because the combination looks weird.

Generalists don't just follow maps. They draw new ones when the old ones stop fitting. I'm a generalist. I'm good at it. That's why you're reading this :P — Aashwin