Range
Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
by David J. Epstein · first published 2019
64% recommend36% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Research-backed case that generalists and broad experience often beat early, narrow specialization, with sports examples on sampling other sports. Easy to read; suits specialists doubting their path or career-changers.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
What's the most effective path to success in any domain? It's not what you think. Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you'll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world's top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule. David Epstein examined the world's most successful a
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The book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41795733-range argues a lot for this as well, and goes on to discuss numerous examples where generalists…
on “Time anxiety: is it too late?” ↗I suggest you read David Epstein's recent book Range: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized... His basic point is that our culture highly values the Tiger-Woods-style success story, where a person just beavers away at one thing their…
on “The side of Paul Allen I wish more people knew about” ↗Range by David Epstein [0]. It's a good middle point on the understanding of 'mastery' that Gladwell started in the late oughts and whose meme of '10k hours' kinda infected a lot of pop-psych and MBAs. Epstein…
on “Ask HN: Best books you read in the past decade?” ↗Assume you have The Range by David Epstein? Basically book advocates diversity in skills over specialisation, personally I am a big buyer of that thesis, one reason I read HN everyday.
on “Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?” ↗David Epstein's Range [0] is a great look into this seeming paradox of broad v. deep. The intro chapters of Tiger Woods with golf versus Roger Federer with tennis are the thesis: There are 'kind' learning environments and…
on “On Being a Generalist” ↗The book Range, by David Epstein has a pretty interesting chapter on music and the history of improvisation. I knew that Django, the Python web dev framework, had been named after some obscure dutch musician. But after…
on “Ask HN: How to Become a Music Buff?” ↗…don't know the demo in 2006 though: https://www.greatschools.org/california/pleasant-hill/466-Co... Natural talent is still a thing. Though I do agree that more $$$ = better training. David Epstein's Range talks a lot about training in your younger years. He has a much better argument than me, but the gist is that you have to have a 'trial' period before you commit (depending on sport conditions). In 'unkind'…
on “UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors” ↗David Epstein's Range has a great viewpoint on this. He states that there are Kind Learning Environments. These are places like golf, chess, or classical piano. Here, the feedback is quick, the goals are clear, and relative…
on “Why are boys academically underperforming? [audio]” ↗By that argument...the faster the world is changing, the bigger of an advantage generalists have. There's even a book about it: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized...
on “Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)” ↗I found this reading very interesting https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized...
on “Generalists vs specialists – Who has a greater chance of success? (2019)” ↗Oh wow is this a trait? I had an adult ADHD diagnosis a few years ago, but not much has come of it since (still struggling with "typical" work arrangements). In fact I just interviewed with a company today where I expressed my resistance being pigeonholed in my own words. Speaking of being a generalist, the book "Range" by David Epstein gave me some…
on “Strengthening our workplace with neurodiverse talent” ↗…'paint drip' people is a term used for generalists who have acquired a diverse skillset during their career and how these generalists have an upper hand over a specialist in certain domains. The book Range by David Epstein also goes deep into this philosophy. A single anecdote of a misguided manager ruining it for their team does not invalidate the idea of T-Shaped people.
on “Why T-shaped people? (2018)” ↗Check out the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World” by David Epstein for why generalists actually have better outcomes than specialists, even at specialized tasks. Intuitively, I think this makes sense.…
on “The threat of youth basketball” ↗…-- should be something similar where you are from). edX has great courses; there is OpenCourseware, Udemy, etc. - Two books I'd like to recommend: "So Good They Can't Ignore You" by Cal Newport, and "Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World" by David Epstein. Good luck.
on “Ask HN: I have a lot of time, how should I invest it?” ↗Excellent counterpoint resource on Tiger-styled learning https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized...
on “If you're busy, you're doing something wrong (2011)” ↗