Applied Strategic Ignorance

Happy Sunday Friends!

As always, here’s a story, two ideas from me, and three of my favorite things. Just embracing a new format.

This week I was asked “With new AI protocols, frameworks, and tools releasing daily, how do you keep up with it all?"

The easy truth: I don’t.

The hidden assumption is that I have a system. A dashboard. A secret firehose I drink from that allows me to synthesize everything.

And the reason I don't isn't just because of time constraints. It is a strategic choice to kill the part of me that needs to look like the smartest person in the room.

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” — Epictetus

The Ego of “Keeping Up” The anxiety you feel when a new model drops and you haven’t tested it yet? That isn’t a professional failing. That is Ego.

Ego whispers that you need to be an expert in everything to maintain your status. It tells you that silence is weakness. But in an era of historical velocity, where technological compounding outpaces human bandwidth, the pretense of universal expertise is the death of actual competence.

If you try to know everything, you end up with shallow understanding everywhere and deep understanding nowhere. You become a commentator, not a builder. You fall for the “comfort of chatter”—talking about the work instead of doing it.

The Discipline of the Generalist The antidote is Epistemic Humility. This isn’t about being passive; it’s about conserving your energy for where it counts.

My operating model is to be a Generalist who cultivates distinct, lethal expertise in just a few critical areas.

1. Ruthless Depth (The Work): I pick a small circle: Strategy and Integrated Cyber Power. In this circle, I go vertical. I read the papers. I test the code. I shun the noise to build Mastery.

2. Managed Breadth (The Awareness): For everything else, I accept being a novice. I don’t need to know the syntax of the latest JS framework; I just need to know where it fits on the map.

3. Distributed Cognition (The Leverage): I surround myself with people who are smarter than me in the areas I accept risk. I trade my depth for theirs. I don’t need to hold the knowledge in my head if I hold the relationship in my hand.

3 Favorite Things

1. Concept: Shoshin (Beginner’s Mind) | The Zen Buddhist concept of having an open eagerness and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject. The expert’s mind is full; the beginner’s mind is empty and ready to receive.

2. Read: “The Bitter Lesson” by Rich Sutton | A humbling reminder that every time we try to build our own cleverness into the machine, we lose. Sutton argues that general methods that leverage raw computation always beat human-crafted knowledge in the long run. It is the ultimate argument for stepping back and letting the system learn.

3. Quote: “Success is the peace of mind of knowing you made your best effort.” | John Wooden

One Question Where are you faking competence right now because your Ego is too afraid to ask a “stupid” question?

Until Sunday, my friends.

Think Dangerously.
–e