Specific Knowledge is more valuable than general knowledge

What is specific knowledge?

I'm borrowing the concept of Specific Knowledge from Naval Ravikant.

Specific Knowledge can't be googled, you can't just take a class to learn it. Specific Knowledge is something you gain through deep repeated experience. It makes you competent in what is hardest to automate.

Examples:

How to be an effective boss and motivate your employees
Understanding how to build and maintain meaningful relationships in your life
Understanding how to troubleshoot and google to help yourself solve coding problems.
Understanding how to learn new things quickly and how to put those techniques into practice

Specific Knowledge can't be gained by reading a book on the subject, but could with a mentor, practice and experience.

Why it matters

Specific knowledge is special because it's hardest to duplicate or automate, making it far more scarce and valuable. More info isn't the answer and isn't the goal. Useful knowledge and skills are.

It's not hard to follow a set of lego instructions, but someone who can build cool stuff out of a random pile of legos? That's absurdly impressive, I want to be that person's friend, and there's no book you could read that could teach you that (although there could be a book that could teach you how to teach that skill to yourself).

Most of the things that matter in that they feel meaningful to us or are genuinely valuable to others don't come in the form of raw information but as deeply learned skills.

TLDR:

If you want to learn how to ride a bike, start riding it. Studying physics first won't help you.

References:

From The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned. -- Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, loc. 352-53

Very often, specific knowledge is at the edge of knowledge. It’s also stuff that’s only now being figured out or is really hard to figure out. If you’re not 100 percent into it, somebody else who is 100 percent into it will outperform you. -- Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, loc. 389-91

It’s much more important today to be able to become an expert in a brand-new field in nine to twelve months than to have studied the “right” thing a long time ago. -- Eric Jorgenson, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, loc. 409-10

tags: #evergreen / #budding / #thought /

Formation Date: 2021-03-11