You've Got A Golden Ticket!
Steven Kneiser
3-minute read
Go!
Now’s your chance!
There’s a glitch in the mætrix
There’s a closing window of opportunity
You don’t need to own large plots of land
You don’t need to own massive machinery
You don’t even need others’ time & labor
Really meditate on that
How utterly insane is that?
What would your ancestors say?
What might your descendants say?
The Information Age
Software is eating the world,
but it wasn’t always this way
Only in the last century did we get the opportunity to simply clock-in & clock-out of a factory job. Sure it was extremely taxing on the body & sanity, but we gained safety & security in the consistency of work. We could just show up for the same hours every day: minimal disruption. No more worrying about our family’s farm getting wiped out from the unpredictable weather. No more waiting for the seasons to pass.
🌈 All is right in the world ✨
Yeah, the Internet tore everything apart
Wait… What? Why?
How?
Stop it
Cut that out
“Why did the Internet
~ the most disruptive technology in history since writing & money ~
force us to rethink every aspect of society?”
That’s a dumb question
Didn’t your 4th grade teacher
ever tell you “no dumb questions”?
right JAMES?
You should be ashamed of yourself
*slow inhale*
*slow exhale*
Deep breaths
…just like the doctor said
😳
*ehm*
I totally hear you:
it’s a fascinating question
but this isn’t the place for my Ph.D. dissertation
Let’s not rationalize what happened,
but figure out where to go from here
Take it in stride [while you still can]
Entire industries largely inverted
from information scarcity (i.e. mysteries)
to information abundance (i.e. puzzles)
We need information workers
We need to make sense of this overwhelming data
Sure, software developers are all the rage right now because they wrestle with information, but that doesn’t completely capture how they changed the game. Their superpower isn’t just complete command over information, but complete command over information systems.
We’re rewiring & communicating with new, more productive creatures
Why are systems so important?
They run the same every single time
They’re “deterministic”
not probabilistic
Solving a math problem for given values is cool & all, but can you craft the algorithmic solution for every input? As soon as someone solves that problem systematically, no one needs to bother ever again. They’ve freed up everyone to focus for bigger problems.
People who improve systems
don’t add value: they multiply it
If you reduce a website’s load time even by one second, you don’t just save yourself one second: you save everyone who ever loads that website one second. If 36,000 people visit your website everyday, that one second equals 10 hours of others’ time …& that’s not once, but 10 hours saved every. single. day. into the future
No wonder the world is speeding up
There’s still labor to be done,
but labor is no longer the bottleneck
Bottlenecks get all the focus
because water can only flow as fast
as it does through the bottle’s neck
Your team can only run as fast
as the slowest member
Where’s my ticket, exactly?
It’s not easy,
but it’s never been so accessible
For once in history,
you have this tiny window
& no one can get in your way
- not your high school bully
- not your last employer
- not Harvard
Yes, this is really happening
You just need one chance
You just need one job offer
to join The Information Age
But not for long…
There’s a reason this ticket is golden
Not everyone can get one in time
No one knows when this train
will leave the station