Specific knowledge
Building the kind of skill nobody knows how to teach, by following real curiosity
Knowledge that no school hands over. It comes from temperament, from an obsession picked up in childhood, or from a field so new that nobody has written the training manual yet. The argument for chasing it is economic. Whatever a company can train someone to do, it can train into a cheaper someone, so pay falls toward the cost of training. Work that resists handing over is where the money collects. In practice it means following genuine interest rather than whichever field is hot, taking the part of a job with the steepest learning curve, and accepting that from the outside it often looks like play.
People on record
Sorted by strength of stance
Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.
- Naval RavikantRecommends
Angel investor · AngelList and the Naval podcast
Anything a company can train someone to do can be trained into a cheaper someone, so he argues that pay collects around knowledge nobody knows how to teach. You find it by following genuine curiosity, in his account, not by picking whichever field currently looks profitable.
Source: nav.al: Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge
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