The myth of the generalist by @ttunguz
When I started working at Google, I heard the word generalist over and over. “We only hire generalists,” I was told. Eight years later this mantra is pretty common. I hear it often both referring to the desired characteristics of new hires and also the aspirations of a team - “we want to be a team of generalists”. At the time, I understood the word generalist to mean someone really good at a lot of things.
In short : Explores the concept of generalists in startups as specialists who connect their expertise to broader knowledge. When I started working at Google, I heard the word generalist over and over. “We only hire generalists,” I was told. Eight years later this mantra is pretty common. I hear it often both referring to the desired characteristics of new hires and also the aspirations of a team - “we want to be a team of generalists”. At the time, I understood the word generalist to mean someone really good at a lot of things. In computer science, it might mean an engineer who is great at…
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