This Booksmart feature breaks down the game-changing argument from Mansoor Soomro’s The Generalist Advantage, the book every ambitious founder and future leader should be reading right now.
Soomro’s research is clear: as AI gets better at specialist tasks, the people who win will be those who can work across fields, blend skills, and build new value where the bots can’t follow.
Drawing on insights from real data from Soomro’s research, this feature will show you:
- Why generalists outperform both AI and specialists when it matters most
- How human-AI teams are smashing productivity records (by up to 7x)
- The portable skills every founder, operator, and team needs to stay useful
- How to shift from niche expertise to adaptive thinking fast
- The biggest risk for specialists in the AI era (and how to avoid it)
If you’re running a business, leading a team, or planning your next career step, this is the strategic edge you need.
It’ll also bust the biggest myth holding founders back (“Jack of all trades, master of none”) and give you practical steps to make yourself un-automatable.
How to think like a generalist (and why it matters)
1️⃣ Generalists thrive where AI fails
AI is excellent at precision, but when things get complex, messy, or unpredictable, it breaks. Generalists are built for that chaos: they can zoom out, make connections across disciplines, and shift gears without losing the plot.
In Mansoor’s research, the most effective outcomes came not from humans or AI alone, but from pairing them. Augmented decision-making outperformed AI-only by 3x. The future isn’t full automation, it’s smart humans working with smart tools.
💡 Use AI to go faster, but train yourself to see wider. That’s where your edge is.
2️⃣ Adaptability is your real edge
Specialists go deep, while generalists move across. And in the AI age, where entire skill sets can be automated quickly, transferable skills matter more than technical mastery.
Communication, strategic thinking, pattern recognition are what Mansoor calls “portable skills,” and generalists tend to carry more of them. Not being average at everything, but knowing enough to adapt, collaborate, and build when the rules keep changing.
💡 Don’t chase depth for the sake of it. Build skills you can take anywhere.
