The Age of the Generalist
The future doesn’t belong to specialists. It belongs to those who can combine.
AI is your specialist now. It can go deeper, faster, and for longer than any human ever could. But it still can’t ask the right question. It can’t connect the dots between six seemingly unrelated fields (yet anyway). And it certainly can’t hold a vision across time.
That’s your job.
What matters now is range. Not depth. The best operators in this new era will be fluent in multiple domains — not masters of one. They’ll know just enough to move between them. To blend them. To orchestrate.
This is a moment for synthesis. For those who think like systems, not functions. Who can talk to an AI like an analyst, write like a strategist, and frame like a founder.
The old question was: what’s your niche? The new one is: what can you combine?
And perhaps the more important one: what can you ask? The quality of your questions will define the quality of your outcomes. In a world of infinite answers, the generalist knows which question to pose, which lever to pull, and when to let the machine go deep.
We’re not training craftsmen anymore. We’re training conductors. Directors. Navigators. In the land of the large language model (LLM), the generalist is the General.
You don’t need to know everything. But you do need to know what matters. And who (or what) to ask next.
The job description of the future won’t be a static list of responsibilities. It will be a dynamic map of intersections. A generalist won’t just bring skills — they’ll bring synthesis. They’ll know how to spin up agents, structure workflows, test assumptions, and reframe problems. The best will treat tools like extensions of thought. They won’t get stuck going deeper. They’ll know when to go wider.
This is the Age of the Generalist. Adapt accordingly.
