At Demand.io, we pride ourselves on being a company of deep generalists. This guide explores the concept of deep generalists, explains why it's a cornerstone of our culture, and shows you how to thrive in this unique environment.
A deep generalist is an individual who has developed substantial expertise in multiple distinct, yet adjacent domains. Unlike a specialist who focuses intensely on a single area, or a generalist who has broad but shallow knowledge, a deep generalist combines depth and breadth in a powerful way.
To put it simply, a deep generalist is someone who can dive deep into multiple areas of expertise, connecting dots that others might miss. They're T-shaped professionals on steroids – instead of just one area of depth, they have multiple.
As Aytekin Tank, founder and CEO of Jotform, defines it in his essay on deep generalists:
"A modern polymath is someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set."
Our mission is to be the world's leading source of e-commerce knowledge. This ambitious goal requires us to innovate across multiple domains – from AI and data science to user experience and community building. Deep generalists are uniquely equipped to drive this kind of cross-functional innovation.
By cultivating a team of deep generalists, we can:
The deep generalist approach is intrinsically linked to our core values of innovation, empowerment, and continuous growth. It's also a key component of our concentric circles model of value alignment.
A deep generalist is someone who becomes competent in at least three diverse domains and integrates them into a top 1-percent skill set. At Demand.io, this might look like:
The key is not just accumulating knowledge in different areas, but being able to synthesize this knowledge to create unique insights and solutions. Deep generalists are able to:
Traditionally, career advice has often steered people towards specialization. The idea was to become the go-to expert in a narrow field. While this approach can be valuable in certain contexts, it has limitations in a rapidly changing, interconnected world.
| Specialists | Deep Generalists |
|---|---|
| Deep knowledge in one area | Deep knowledge in multiple, connected areas |
| May struggle when their field evolves | Adaptable to changes across several domains |
| Expert within their silo | Can bridge different departments and disciplines |
| Depth of knowledge | Depth and breadth of knowledge |
At Demand.io, we believe that the future belongs to those who can navigate complexity and drive innovation by connecting different fields of knowledge.
We've all grown up in an age of specialization. Doctors, lawyers, accountants – we've been taught that we should build careers by specializing in narrow fields of knowledge. However, the world is changing rapidly, and the value of deep generalists is becoming increasingly apparent.
As Aytekin Tank points out:
"Despite the world's immense need for polymaths, these individuals seem to be quite rare. That's because society promotes specialization over generalization, based on a long-standing assumption: The more deeply you specialize, the more easily you can find employment."
However, this paradigm is shifting, largely due to technological advancements and changing economic landscapes.
Artificial Intelligence is set to dramatically reshape the job market. As AI systems become more sophisticated, they're increasingly capable of performing specialized tasks that were once the domain of human experts.
Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, predicts:
"Machines will be superhuman. So, it's hard to imagine any job where humans will remain better than the machines. This means the only jobs left will be those where we prefer humans to do them."
In this AI-driven future, the roles that will remain relevant are those that require creative problem-solving, innovation, and uniquely human traits – precisely the strengths of deep generalists.
In his book "A Whole New Mind", Daniel Pink argues that we're moving from a "left-brain world" to a "right-brain world". He calls this new era the "Conceptual Age":
"We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what's rising in its place, the Conceptual Age."
Pink suggests that the future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These are precisely the skills that deep generalists excel at.
"The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind—computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people—artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers—will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys."
History shows us that many of mankind's biggest breakthroughs haven't come from specialists, but from multifaceted individuals who could draw connections between different fields.
For instance, Nobel Prize-winner Francis Crick credits his background in physics for helping him intuit the structure of DNA – a problem previously deemed unsolvable by modern biologists. Similarly, Richard Feynman generated his ideas about quantum electrodynamics while watching a guy spin a plate on his fingers in a cafeteria, after he had rededicated himself to interests outside of physics.
These examples highlight how diverse knowledge and the ability to make unconventional connections can lead to groundbreaking innovations.
Our mission is to be the world's leading source of e-commerce knowledge. This ambitious goal requires us to excel across multiple domains:
By cultivating deep generalists, we create a team that can navigate these diverse areas with agility and insight. Our people aren't just technologists or just e-commerce experts – they're both, and more.
Let's look at some hypothetical examples of how deep generalism manifests at Demand.io:
These examples illustrate how our team members combine diverse skill sets to drive innovation and solve complex problems.
The deep generalist approach is crucial to our ability to innovate and tackle challenging problems:
For instance, when developing Product.ai, our team needed to combine expertise in:
Our deep generalist approach allowed us to bring together these diverse areas of knowledge to create an innovative, user-centric product.
Successful deep generalists at Demand.io typically exhibit the following characteristics:
Becoming a deep generalist is an ongoing journey. Here are some strategies to develop these capabilities:
One of the biggest challenges for deep generalists is striking the right balance between depth and breadth of knowledge. At Demand.io, we believe in being "T-shaped" professionals on steroids – having multiple areas of deep expertise along with a broad base of general knowledge.
Here's how we think about this balance:
The deep generalist approach permeates every aspect of our work at Demand.io. One way to understand this is through the analogy of jazz music:
In jazz, band members play together as one unit, hearing and predicting transitions, and spontaneously invoking changes in mood, phrasing and lyrical direction — all without direction or talking to each other. Innovating is like making music. Instead of notes, our creative output is expressed through designs, wireframes, prototypes, features, scalable platforms, functionality, marketing strategies, growth funnels, analysis, and business processes. We as a team all collaborate on new concepts, sharing our feedback and ideas as ideas take form.
This jazz-like collaboration allows us to:
Let's look at some hypothetical examples of how the deep generalist approach manifests in different areas of Demand.io: