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Specific Knowledge Is Highly Creative or Technical.html
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Specific Knowledge Is Highly Creative or Technical.html
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<p>![[Naval-Ep14.mp3]]</p>
<p>
Specific knowledge is on the bleeding edge of technology, art and
communication
</p>
<p>Specific knowledge can be taught through apprenticeships</p>
<p>
<strong>Naval:</strong> To the extent that specific knowledge is taught,
it’s on the job. It’s through apprenticeships. And that’s why the best
businesses, the best careers are the apprenticeship or self-taught
careers, because those are things society still has not figured out how to
train and automate yet.
</p>
<p>
The classic line here is that Warren Buffett went to Benjamin Graham when
he got out of school. Benjamin Graham was the author of the Intelligent
Investor and sort of modernized or created value investing as a
discipline. And Warren Buffett went to Benjamin Graham and offered to work
for him for free.
</p>
<p>
And Graham said, “Actually, you’re overpriced, free is overpriced.” And
Graham was absolutely right. When it comes to a very valuable
apprenticeship like the type that Graham was going to give Buffet, Buffet
should have been paying him a lot of money. That right there tells you
that those are skills worth having.
</p>
<p>
<strong>Specific knowledge is often highly creative or technical</strong>
</p>
<p>
Specific knowledge also tends to be technical and creative. It’s on the
bleeding edge of technology, on the bleeding edge of art, on the bleeding
edge of communication.
</p>
<p>
Even today, for example, there are probably meme lords out there on the
Internet who can create incredible memes that will spread the idea to
millions of people. Or are very persuasive – Scott Adams is a good example
of this. He is essentially becoming one of the most credible people in the
world by making accurate predictions through persuasive arguments and
videos.
</p>
<p>
And that is specific knowledge that he has built up over the years because
he got obsessed with hypnosis when he was young, he learned how to
communicate through cartooning, he embraced Periscope early, so he’s been
practicing lots of conversation, he’s read all the books on the topic,
he’s employed it in his everyday life. If you look at his girlfriend,
she’s this beautiful young Instagram model.
</p>
<p>
That is an example of someone who has built up a specific knowledge over
the course of his career. It’s highly creative, it has elements of being
technical in it, and it’s something that is never going to be automated.
</p>
<p>
No one’s going to take that away from him, because he’s also accountable
under one brand as Scott Adams, and he’s operating with the leverage of
media with Periscope and drawing Dilbert cartoons and writing books. He
has massive leverage on top of that brand and he can build wealth out of
it if he wanted to build additional wealth beyond what he already has.
</p>
<p>
<strong
>Specific knowledge is specific to the individual and situation</strong
>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Nivi:</strong> Should we be calling it unique knowledge or does
specific knowledge somehow make more sense for it?
</p>
<p>
<strong>Naval:</strong> You know, I came up with this framework when I was
really young. We’re talking decades and decades. It’s now probably over 30
years old. So, at the time specific knowledge stuck with me so that is how
I think about it.
</p>
<p>
The reason I didn’t try and change it is because every other term that I
found for it was overloaded in a different way. At least specific
knowledge isn’t that used. I can kind of rebrand it.
</p>
<p>
The problem with unique knowledge is, yeah, maybe it’s unique but if I
learn it from somebody else it’s no longer unique, then we both know it.
So, it’s not so much that it is unique, it’s that it is highly specific to
the situation, it’s specific to the individual, it’s specific to the
problem, and it can only be built as part of a larger obsession, interest,
and time spent in that domain.
</p>
<p>
It can’t just be read straight out of a single book, nor can it be taught
in a single course, nor can it be programmed into a single algorithm.
</p>
<p>
<strong
>You can’t be too deliberate about assembling specific knowledge</strong
>
</p>
<p>
<strong>Nivi:</strong> Speaking of Scott Adams, he’s got a blog post on
how to build your career by getting in, say, the top 25 percentile at
three or more things. And by doing that, you become the only person in the
world who can do those three things in the 25th percentile.
</p>
<p>
So, instead of trying to be the best at one thing, you just try to be
very, very good at three or more things. Is that a way of building
specific knowledge?
</p>
<p>
<strong>Naval:</strong> I actually think the best way is just to follow
your own obsession. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you can
realize that, actually, this obsession I like and I’ll keep an eye out for
the commercial aspects of it.
</p>
<p>
But I think if you go around trying to build it a little too deliberately,
if you become too goal-oriented on the money, then you won’t pick the
right thing. You won’t actually pick the thing that you love to do, so you
won’t go deep enough into it.
</p>
<p>
Scott Adams’ observation is a good one, predicated on statistics. Let’s
say there’s 10,000 areas that are valuable to the human race today in
terms of knowledge to have, and the number one in those 10,000 slots is
taken.
</p>
<p>
Someone else is likely to be the number one in each of those 10,000,
unless you happen to be one of the 10,000 most obsessed people in the
world that at a given thing.
</p>
<p>
But when you start combining, well, number 3,728 with top-notch sales
skills and really good writing skills and someone who understands
accounting and finance really well, when the need for that intersection
arrives, you’ve expanded enough from 10,000 through combinatorics to
millions or tens of millions. So, it just becomes much less competitive.
</p>
<p>
Also, there’s diminishing returns. So, it’s much easier to be top 5
percentile at three or four things than it is to be literally the number
one at something.
</p>
<p><strong>Build specific knowledge where you are a natural</strong></p>
<p>
I think it’s a very pragmatic approach. But I think it’s important that
one not start assembling things too deliberately because you do want to
pick things where you are a natural. Everyone is a natural at something.
</p>
<p>
We’re all familiar with that phrase, a natural. “Oh, this person is a
natural at meeting men or women, this person is a natural socialite, this
person is a natural programmer, this person is a natural reader.” So,
whatever you are a natural at, you want to double down on that.
</p>
<p>
And then there are probably multiple things you’re natural at because
personalities and humans are very complex. So, we want to be able to take
the things that you are natural at and combine them so that you
automatically, just through sheer interest and enjoyment, end up top 25%
or top 10% or top 5% at a number of things.
</p>
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