Competency Gap
When I was younger, in my 20s, I assumed that everyone was working “hard,” meaning a solid 35 hours of work a week… Today I realize that most people become very adept at avoiding actual work. And the people you think are working really hard are often just very good at focusing on what is externally visible. They show up to the right meetings but unashamedly avoid the hard work. It ends up being visible to the people “who know.” Why? Because working hard is how you acquire actual expertise. And lack of actual expertise ends up being visible… but only to those who have the relevant expertise. And the effect compounds. The difference between someone who has honed their skills for 20 years and someone who has merely showed up to the right meetings becomes enormous.
And the competency gap will continue to widen with AI. This is why Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity resonates. Ruthlessly prioritize deep work and the few things that matter, and give yourself space to do it exceptionally well.
This connects to something I’ve been thinking about since writing The Raft and the Ladder. AI makes it easier to skip the hard parts. The temptation of task completion dopamine is real. You can get things done without acquiring the expertise that doing things the hard way used to force on you.
For people who already have expertise, AI is leverage. For people who were going to do the deep work anyway, AI accelerates them. But for people who were always looking for shortcuts, AI is the ultimate shortcut.
The gap will widen.