Originally published 12/20/22
Turned 55 and thinking "Am I Toast"? ⬇️ Read on ⬇️
From Rishad Tobaccowala's fantastic "The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past" - A very thought provoking newsletter and a guide for everyone who just turned 55 and is thinking "Am I Toast" a great guide to thriving in your golden years:
Talent will matter even more
Here are six things we may all want to consider as we move into a new AI age (which is just one of four factors including….5G, Voice/AR/VR and Block Chain… that is so going to revolutionize the future to ensure individuals, teams, and companies which in the end are just one thing TALENT continue to thrive.
- Embrace technology: Those who embraced the fire and the wheel out lived and were more successful than those who did not. Learn, invest, and experiment with technology. If one is world class and does not embrace technology a good company or talent with technology will likely end up doing better. The photograph above “Theatre D’Opera Spatial “by Jason M Allen recently won a photography award and was created using Mid Journey another option to Stable Diffusion and Dall-E2. In many ways these new tools are the Photoshops of today.
- Complement Technology: Machines cannot yet feel. Machines do not look ahead but are amazing at seeing patterns of the past. Machines are bad at nuance. Machines do not get cancer. Machines do not cry. How do we work with machines? How do we complement machines? Last week Stanford’s Yoav Shoham one of the leading AI researchers in the world spoke on What Next? the podcast I host on the topic of People Plus Machine: The Future of Work and describes how a young child is often more sophisticated at certain tasks than the best Ai.
- Invest in learning: The problem with technology is that it has a shorter and shorter half-life and a faster and faster pace of advancement. Moore’s law saw chip technology double in capacity every 18 months but today AI progresses twice as fast. Be wary of people constantly speaking about the “good old days”. The best days are ahead but require constant learning.
- The future is carbon and digital: We are going to be increasingly in a digital, data driven, silicon-based future but the differentiating edge when everyone has tech will be analog, feeling carbon-based people whether it is talent or consumers or clients. Combing the two will be key. Art plus Science. Math plus Meaning. The Story and the Spreadsheet.
- Fixate on talent: Talent is job one, two and three for all companies. Companies that win will be better at attracting, retaining, and upgrading talent that can collaborate, co-exist, and combine skills with Ai. Finance will matter. Technology will matter. Logistics will matter. But people are everything. The best companies from Microsoft after Satya Nadella to Southwest and Delta versus United and American recognize that people are the differentiator and as technology scales talent will be the key. Because technology not only can replace talent that do machine like jobs, but machines also greatly magnify the impact of talent who do jobs that are synergistic with computers. And these will be most of the jobs.
- Hone your talent: Every human is talented. The key is to discover what we excel at and find ways to hone our craft and skill in ways that can be enhanced with technology. This requires continues practice, re-learning and re-imagining our work and how we will work.