Hollywood style

I love this article about Kevin Kelly. The author, Brie Wolfson, visited Kelly and talked with him about his career. Kelly calls his way of working “Hollywood style” – producing a series of independent creative projects guided by what is interesting.

Wolfson, who is also pursuing a Hollywood style career, writes about her anxiety at comparing herself to her peers in Silicon Valley:

Working in Silicon Valley will convince you that starting a company with its sights on unicorn status is the only possible way to make an impact, and the only work worthy of an ambitious individual … I started to reflect on my own trajectory with fear that it didn’t mirror my ambition, work ethic, or deep care about the role of work in a life. Had I pointed my ambition in the wrong direction? What did I have to show for all my effort? Had I made some irreversible, unforced error with my career? How much money had I left on the table? Would the people I respected respect me back for much longer? Despite working my butt off for a decade, I had no expertise and no line of sight into where I was going. I felt immature for placing such a high value on “fun” and “bouncing around,” and full of regret about not picking a lane (or even better, a ladder).

Kelly gives some good advice:

I asked Kelly about the tradeoffs of focusing on a single thing if you want to be great … “Greatness is overrated,” he said, and I perked up. “It’s a form of extremism, and it comes with extreme vices that I have no interest in. Steve Jobs was a jerk. Bob Dylan is a jerk.”

Kevin Kelly would say it’s good to have an “illegible” career path—it means you’re onto interesting stuff.

“The people who become legendary in their interests never feel they have arrived.”

As someone with an illegible career, I appreciate this.

Go and read Flounder Mode.