where you sit on the triangle of talent

Table of Contents

• Mindsets: 5x15, Triangle of Talent

• Life Skill: Watch Your Tone

• Career Advice: Mission Probable

• This is Cool: Open AIs Deep Research

• This is Spicy: Unbundle Higher Ed

MINDSET OF THE WEEK
5×15, Triangle of Talent

This is a combo mindset example:

• how to apply a beginners mindset

• how to identify the people you want on your team.

In Shaan’s 5×15 example, he used years, but it can be any variable. It’s more of the mindset that you’re acknowledging that when you’re new to something, you’re going to suck at it for a bit, i.e. embracing your beginners mindset.

Sucking at something new is normal. And expected.

But that’s also the reason a lot of people don’t start something new. Imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or simply not wanting to step outside of your comfort zone have ended more dreams than my alarm clock.

Adopting this mindset gives yourself a little grace at the beginning, knowing that beginner state is only temporary - you’re going to step up and figure it out.

But only you can do that. It’s within your control whether you decide to put in the work to improve and get better, or not.

This isn’t specific to new jobs or responsibilities. Think about picking up new skills.

The first time I put on cross country skis a few years back, it looked like Bambi on ice. Not pretty. But I understood the only way to get better at something is to fight through the suck, apply the coaching I received, and figure it out.

Reps. Reflection. Repeat.

I was with my now wife’s immediate family, but the relationship was still new. My options were to opt out and stay in front of the warm fire (not a good look when trying to impress the parents), or apply that 5×15 mindset.

It took about 5 outings on those skis, and some practice on my own, before those movements become somewhat natural looking, but we got there. The next 15 were almost fun. Still a bit of a stretch to say I enjoy the activity.

When you’re building a team, you want to find the people who embrace that beginners mindset, and lean into discomfort. Unfortunately, that can be hard.

It’s a lot like being a teacher with a class of 30 students. A lot of time is spent dealing with specific students. Except in a class, you don’t usually get to pick who you bring into your class, and it’s really hard to fire students.

At the end of the day, any company/organization is really just a collection of the people you have working there. It’s the decisions, and actions from the people at the company that produce the results.

That was true last year. But is that still the case today?

We’re now at a place where for the first time in human history, it won’t be humans alone that we’re bringing on to our teams.

Regardless, Shaan’s triangle applies.

Agent, or human, some are going to perform better than others.

Shaan calls this his Triangle of Talent:

I used a similar mental model when organizing the hackathon team that I’m working with right now. Work with people long enough, and it’s actually not that hard to figure out where people sit in that triangle.

Actions speak louder than words.

After filtering for people who had a genuine interest in solving problems within education, and had some technical skills, I thought about which of those people lived near the top of the pyramid.

Final hackathon presentations are happening tomorrow. I like our chances. We have a good team. And more importantly, we’re having fun.

If you are someone who can…

• embrace new challenges with a 5×15 mindset

• identify the most impactful problem that needs to be solved

• figure out how to solve it yourself, or by coordinating others

• surround yourself with other people like that

… you’re going to be in a good position to win at life.

LIFE SKILL
Watch Your Tone 

“Watch your tone young man.” I get flashbacks and cold sweats just typing that sentence. It’s a phrase that was all too common in my house growing up as one of three stubborn boys. Sorry mom.

Turns out tone matters when you’re communicating at work as well. And with tone, perception is reality.

It’s difficult to control for how the other person will receive it, especially with written text. I think that’s one of the reasons some people use so many smiley faces :) or exclamation points! in their emails.

I think this is great advice.

I prefer async loom videos for important messages where context, and tone is important. Depending on who you’re talking to though, video doesn’t always work.

But it’s not everyones cup of team.

And when communicating externally with other organizations, if it’s not a part of their culture, or their in an industry where clicking unfamiliar links is a big no-no, the written word still reigns supreme.

Below is an example of an email I sent recently.

Without going into the weeds, communication from their side lately had not been great. And there had been some delays on our collaboration which left some of my teammates internally, and educators at schools, asking questions about timelines.

I would categorize my email to them as polite assertiveness.

Always a fine dance in business communication, especially when dealing with someone outside of your organization.

Most people on my team know me well enough to give me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to tone interpretation. I’ma generally cheery, positive guy.

In this case, I only talk to these people so often, and when we’re talking it’s usually right down to business.

Knowing that tone could be misinterpreted, I simply acknowledged it ahead head on in the beginning of the email.

And signed off with the fact that I was sending the email with a smile.

This isn’t a silver bullet. You can’t use it if your ask/message is unreasonable.

If you preface the fact that you don’t want your tone to come off the wrong way, but then still act like a jerk throughout the rest of the email, it won’t work.

That’s like saying ‘hey, no offense, but…’ and then laying into someone. The no offense part doesn’t shield you from being a dick.

Luckily, in my case it was well received. And created some urgency on their end.

You love to see it.

CAREER ADVICE
Mission Probable

Not a hot take, but a warm take:

The word career is going to take on a completely different meaning vs how we’ve always thought about it, if we continue to use it at all.

We used to think of careers as something you do for life. We attached our identities to them. From Edgar the blacksmith, to Bonnie the accountant.

Many of us reading this know someone who has worked for the same company and/or within the same discipline for their entire working lives.

But today, these are the exceptions to the rule.

And if there are ever disruptions to the golden handcuffs (pensions) that keep many people working in more traditional single-career roles like educators, or police officers, we could see that change too.

Which, and here comes another warm take, I’m here for. Or at least here for a discussion about. There’s definitely value in specialization, and specialization gets better with reps, and compounding over time.

Most people would prefer their doctor to have grey hairs, not braces, for example. Experience matters.

But diversity of experience matters too.

I’ve met many wonderful educators over the years, who have no industry experience. They’ve gone from school (graduating high school) to school (graduating teachers college), back to school (teaching at one). That was a normal path that made sense for a long time. But what does normal even mean anymore?

Being able to speak to lived experiences, especially when working with young people is powerful, at least as a rebuttal to the inevitable “when will we ever use this in the real world?” question.

Same thing is true with policing. I know for a fact that many police forces today prefer to hire candidates with life experience. It’s a crazy job. One that requires a certain level of emotional intelligence, and life maturity to do well.

So what if instead of one marathon of a career, we prioritized a diversity of sprints over our working years? Each sprint allowing us to develop a new set of skills, that we could stitch together like a swiss army knife. Where life long learning wasn’t a suggestion, but a requirement.

Mission sounds cooler than sprint.

In this scenario, you’re basically Tom Cruise - Mission Impossible style, where your team, or just you, is contracted to complete a specific work based assignment. Instead of guns, you have keyboards… Much less cool now.

It means the gig economy takes on a whole new meaning. Everything becomes a gig mission.

Here’s 30 seconds of the Angel Philosopher Naval Ravikant explaining how he sees this working.

Naval isn’t the only one thinking many of us could (and might want to) be headed in that direction. The rest and reassess part doesn’t sounds so bad.

Milly was one of my first You Do What!? guests. She runs a community of almost 100k self-proclaimed generalists.

She mentions that career transitions are already happening 2x faster than pre-pandemic. It’s a safe bet that will only continue to increase, along with the rate of change we’re experiencing.

It’s likely going to be on us, as individuals, to figure out what we need to do to re-skill, when it makes time to move on, and how/where to go next in our working lives.

She argues, and I agree, that our traditional institutions aren’t set up to support people understand how to do that effectively.

That’s one of the things Milly and her team are trying to do with Generalist World; help you figure out how to succeed in this “new traditional”.

Whether you develop your skills in sprints, or not, expect to see more postings like this - calling out the need for generalists.

Things are moving so quickly these days, that employers are going to be increasingly seeking out individuals with a diverse set of skills, who live at the top of the triangle of talent.

Someone they can rely on to complete missions for them.

What a standing desk looks like when you’re on a mission 🤣

THIS IS COOL
Open AI’s Deep Research

I generally stay away from sharing the big AI updates when they come out. They happen so fast, and so often, I would have nothing else to talk about in this section.

The way people are reacting to Open AIs new Deep Research tool however, feels a little different. It’s built on their new o3 model.

I haven’t used Deep Research yet. For now, it’s only available in the $200/month plan.

That will change. As will me not paying for the $200/month plan.

What can you use it for?

Here’s an example I found in the wild, not attached to the tools use within the walls of academia.

Expect to find many more examples in the weeks to come as the tool improves, more people get access, and real-world use cases continue to be shared.

Tools like this allow humans to create leverage.

Imagine Person A who understands how to create a report like the one Kyle generated, and also understands how to then get AI tools to action on the recommendations.

Now compare that to Person B who is still working like it’s 2019.

Easily a 10x difference between A and Bs potential output.

If you’re interested in learning more about this topic generally, here’s some optional reading: The End of Search, The Beginning of Research.

THIS IS SPICY
How you can unbundle higher ed. For free.

If I had the option to bet on higher education as a stock, I would short higher ed in the long term. That’s a fancy way of saying, I don’t think my grandchildren’s higher ed experience will look like mine.

This is nothing new. People have been questioning the ROI of higher ed long before AI showed up.

To be clear - I do still think the post-secondary experience is net positive. But that’s largely from a social skills, and learn how to be an adult living on your own standpoint.

And yes - I’m speaking in generalizations. Some programs are still incredibly relevant, useful, and provide an opportunity for students to learn skills, do research, and access resources that would be much harder for them to do otherwise.

Some career paths still require degrees, examinations, and letters that can only be obtained at post-secondary. I get that.

But if you randomly surveyed 100 people about the qualifications needed to do the work they do, I’m willing to bet the majority of those people don’t actually need a degree to work in that field.

Specialized training maybe, but a legacy institutions credentials? Nah.

Some companies like Google already offer their own skill-based certificates for certain positions. No university tuition required.

Which is great. But you can take it one step further. Google certs will help you get Google jobs. .

Given the world we live in today, with the abundance of freely available content, and tools to help us learn and apply knowledge, for a growing number of roles, you don’t technically need a post-secondary institution, or a company, to bundle up the university experience anymore.

You could reverse engineer the entire process on your own.

At the end of that LinkedIn post, Michael shared this more details write up that about how to unbundle higher ed, today.

For the high school educators reading this, these are all actionable recommendations you could bring to your schools today. 90% of these are repeatable at a secondary level.

I’ve summarized the playbook for you below ⬇️

unbundle grad school for 10x more personalized and effective experience (summarized)

the network

• Cities not campuses: Move to industry hubs (Boston for biotech, NYC for finance, SF for tech/AI, LA for entertainment) rather than staying on campus, as this provides better networking and learning opportunities

• Grow in public, don't learn in private: Share your learning journey openly on platforms like X, LinkedIn, or YouTube instead of keeping it confined to private classroom evaluations, as this leads to better connections and opportunities

• Find mentors online, don't limit to offline: Leverage social platforms to reach out to potential mentors beyond your immediate geographical area, aiming to connect with experts in your field of interest

knowledge and skill sets

• Projects not problem sets: Create your own curriculum using AI tools like Claude, focusing on building a portfolio of 5-10 real projects rather than completing standard assignments

• Learn new skillsets in 10-30 day challenges: Practice specific skills like cold outreach, pitching, and product design through structured daily practice and weekly milestones, using AI for feedback and guidance

• Create a growth environment with podcasts: Replace traditional lectures with high-quality podcasts featuring industry leaders and experts, learning from the best while being active (walking, using a whiteboard) rather than passively sitting in lectures’

unique experiences

• Seek out communities of builders: Connect with potential collaborators and co-founders by attending or hosting local demo nights and industry meetups, using platforms like Luma to find events

• Travel the world: Create your own travel experiences or find organizations offering meaningful opportunities abroad, as this can be more cost-effective and valuable than traditional study abroad programs

• Push the edge of your comfort zone: Deliberately challenge yourself through activities like improv, cold approaches, or new routines to grow beyond your current limitations

cultivate growth mindsets

• Practice new mindsets: Study and actively implement growth-oriented mindsets from successful organizations (like Amazon's principles), rather than defaulting to academic mindsets that may bias toward inaction

• Explore philosophy: Engage with classic philosophical works and develop original thoughts through discussions, using AI tools like NotebookLM to facilitate deeper understanding

• Learn from the best: Seek out content (blogs, podcasts, books) from contemporary experts and successful individuals to understand their perspectives and approaches

I’m a fan of Michael. I’m often nodding my head along in agreement when he shares his opinion on education related topics. So much so, I signed up to this two week sprint he just launched where we’re learning to build no code ai agents.

The two week sprint just kicked off this week.

There’s a lot in how he has structured this experience that I would love to see translate to traditional education. This is how the tone is set in the onboarding doc.

I’m not a technical person.

But in the last two editions of this newsletter, I have talked about my participation in a hackathon where we have to build a working prototype, and my enrolment in a sprint designed to help me learn how to build and leverage agents.

There is nothing that I’m doing right now, that any of you couldn’t do either.

You just need to get after it. 5×15, remember?

There’s no other way to get to the top of the triangle.