Here’s how to tie together the OP with some of the critiques offered in comments.
First, let’s sharpen our thinking and clarify some important distinctions. The Pareto frontier is the set of situations where we can’t improve in one area without being worse in another area. By contrast, being the “best in the world” means that we have an absolute advantage.
John’s key point is that it’s possible to have an absolute advantage not in one skill, but in a unique combination of skills, and that this might be the easier path to absolute advantage. If you can get an absolute advantage, then you may gain access to a lot of especially rewarding opportunities that literally nobody else in the world has access to. This normally isn’t possible. John’s suggesting that with good strategy and a lot of hard work, it is.
A few commenters, like Robert Miles and Wei_Dei refer to comparative advantage. They point out that even if you’re not the only person with your unusual skill combination, there might still be enough riches to mine that an absolute advantage isn’t necessary. I pointed out in an earlier version of this comment that it’s not even necessary to be at the Pareto frontier. The strategy of reaping unusual rewards via an unusual combination of skills doesn’t demand that it’s impossible to make one skill better without making another skill worse. It only demands that you’re good enough at each to be unusually useful to your clientele.
Bloop and Alexander point out that many skill combinations are not widely useful, even if they are extremely high-demand for a select clientele. This strategy could lead you to trade off market size for market share, which isn’t always a good trade.
Identifying high-value skill axes and combinations may happen most easily when you jump right into a career and make some concessions to conventionality. You’ll learn from your coworkers about what sorts of skill combinations are in the greatest demand for them, and simultaneously will start to get a feel for the market. The limiting factor on one’s ability to find big opportunities may not be choosing a suboptimally narrow specialty, but instead on failing to put oneself into environments that support continued learning and the pursuit of new opportunities. Choosing the right combination of skills and investments is a highly-dimensional problem, and working in conventional fields alongside other people can be a useful way to impose constraints.
Here’s how to tie together the OP with some of the critiques offered in comments.
First, let’s sharpen our thinking and clarify some important distinctions. The Pareto frontier is the set of situations where we can’t improve in one area without being worse in another area. By contrast, being the “best in the world” means that we have an absolute advantage.
John’s key point is that it’s possible to have an absolute advantage not in one skill, but in a unique combination of skills, and that this might be the easier path to absolute advantage. If you can get an absolute advantage, then you may gain access to a lot of especially rewarding opportunities that literally nobody else in the world has access to. This normally isn’t possible. John’s suggesting that with good strategy and a lot of hard work, it is.
A few commenters, like Robert Miles and Wei_Dei refer to comparative advantage. They point out that even if you’re not the only person with your unusual skill combination, there might still be enough riches to mine that an absolute advantage isn’t necessary. I pointed out in an earlier version of this comment that it’s not even necessary to be at the Pareto frontier. The strategy of reaping unusual rewards via an unusual combination of skills doesn’t demand that it’s impossible to make one skill better without making another skill worse. It only demands that you’re good enough at each to be unusually useful to your clientele.
Bloop and Alexander point out that many skill combinations are not widely useful, even if they are extremely high-demand for a select clientele. This strategy could lead you to trade off market size for market share, which isn’t always a good trade.
Identifying high-value skill axes and combinations may happen most easily when you jump right into a career and make some concessions to conventionality. You’ll learn from your coworkers about what sorts of skill combinations are in the greatest demand for them, and simultaneously will start to get a feel for the market. The limiting factor on one’s ability to find big opportunities may not be choosing a suboptimally narrow specialty, but instead on failing to put oneself into environments that support continued learning and the pursuit of new opportunities. Choosing the right combination of skills and investments is a highly-dimensional problem, and working in conventional fields alongside other people can be a useful way to impose constraints.