Ducks in a Row: Hire People, Not Skills
by Miki Saxon
Back in 2009 I asked what it meant to be educated, considering the amazing basic ignorance displayed daily by Americans — often the same folks who disparaged education focused on liberal arts and the humanities.
Two years later Bill Gates agreed with them, while Steve Jobs disagreed.
In 2011, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates told a panel of American governors that a liberal arts education would hold back college graduates in the modern economy.
A few days later, late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs declared that “it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.”
Their opposite attitudes partially account for Apple’s rise and Microsoft’s fall
In 2015 I wrote about the value of a liberal arts education.
It took seven years and a full change in management, for the “new” Microsoft to acknowledge this fact.
Microsoft president Brad Smith and EVP of AI and research Harry Shum wrote in their new book “The Future Computed” that “one of the most important conclusions” of Microsoft’s recent research into artificial intelligence is that lessons from liberal arts will be critical to unleashing the full potential of AI.
“At one level, AI will require that even more people specialize in digital skills and data science. But skilling-up for an AI-powered world involves more than science, technology, engineering, and math. As computers behave more like humans, the social sciences and humanities will become even more important. Languages, art, history, economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology and human development courses can teach critical, philosophical and ethics-based skills that will be instrumental in the development and management of AI solutions.”
Jobs wasn’t much of a coder. His real genius lay his ability to “see around corners,” know what his market wanted before it knew and then invent it. The fact is that he could see because he was grounded in liberal arts and the humanities.
This is the advantage non-tech founders often bring to the table.
Just as AI can beat humans at chess and Go, it will soon beat them at coding, I wonder just how many of the highly paid techies at Google, Facebook, etc., have the knowledge, philosophy and empathy to design algorithms fit for human consumption?
Image credit: Kyle Pearce
