We use Linux every day
Big chunk of the Internet runs on Linux. Without Linux, there would be no internet. There are tons of software based on this open source software, and Android is just one example.
Linux began as a hobby of a university student in Helsinki in 1991. He wanted to create an open source software that anyone could use for free, so he shared the initial Linux kernel source code on the web and said, "Let's build this together!". So began a decades-long, global-scale, no-money-down collaborative project involving tens of thousands of developers that now is estimated to have an economic value of $6.5 trillion in 2021.
Wait, what am I saying? Tens of thousands of developers around the world, many of whom had never met before, worked together without pay to create a core part of the Internet? (Footnote 1) And it wasn't their "job"?
Nobody wants a cheap car that looks all the same in the 21st Century
The era of mass production is long gone(footnote 2). Nobody does the tidious-repetitive labor. That's work for machines. Machines don't eat, don't sleep, don't need sick leave, and don't go on strike. Humans have been reassigned to do the things that machines cannot do. Intellectual or emotional labor. But still, we work like machines.
If we no longer are subject to repetitive labor, why do we still work like machines?
Fire in the neurons vs. Flexing the muscle
21st century workers are knowledge workers. We go to the office, sit down still and use the brain. Physical work, which was mainstream in the 20th century, is now marginalized. Keeping your brain's neurons and synapses firing fast has become more important than keeping your muscles tight.
So how do you keep your brain's circuits on fire?
Deep Sleep and Deep Work
Meetings are Toxic
says one startup founder. Immersing into your work is like falling asleep. There are several stages of sleep, and you can only fall in deeper by going through the previous stages. If you wake up in the middle, you have to start all over again. Sleeping longer doesn't mean sleeping deeper. Our concentration works the same.
Now, let’s get all your coworkers together in the same room, with identical beds aligned next to each other, and try to deep sleep!
The difference between 'learning hard things quickly' and 'excelling'
The book <Deep Work>, written by a computer science professor in 2016, talks about a protein called myelin. Myelin is a fatty substance that wraps around the axons of neurons. Neurons are the basic building blocks of our brains. Like the rubber tube around an electrical wire, myelin is an insulator that allows electrical signals to travel quickly without loss.
Being good at something depends on how well the related brain circuits, or the network of neurons, is activated. The thicker the myelin sheath that surrounds that circuit, the more quickly and effortlessly it can be fired to do its job.
So how do we have this amazing myelin? By focusing on the task at hand. Brain circuits get stronger with use, myelin builds up in on its own. But when our attention is scattered, multiple brain circuits are actived at the same time, and it's hard to strengthen specific neuronal networks.
The cost of stopping by your coworker’s desk: (hourly wage * 1/3) a time
<Deep Work> also talks about "attention residue". When you're working on one thing and then move on to another, your attention is partly lingering on the previous task. A study shows that it takes at least 20 minutes to get back into the flow of things after the interruption. If your notifications go off every 20 minutes, you don't have a single minute of deep work!
I've come to understand deep work as "long periods of uninterrupted focus leads you to exceptional results".
The way we work - email, Slack, meetings, social media, etc.
fragments our workday, breaking it up into work moments, all of which are distractions to deep focus. So how do we collaborate? We document and communicate asynchronously. That's how Linux was built. How many companies build products that are more complicated than Linux?
It is said that documentation slows down communication and decision making
But I think meetings are a great way to get.. people's reactions! We may like to say that we made an important decision in just two hours through a rambling discussion, but it's not the conclusion after a contemplation. I think writing is more suitable to share deep thoughts. I can go for a stroll, take a shower, play around with the idea in my head, and like a snowball it can grow bigger or denser.
Remote work, for Whom?
The Great Depression of the 1930s introduced the 40-hour workweek across the United States,
and Covid in the 2020s have raided the globe to enforce remote work. We all thought, "We'll do it someday," but didn't see it happening everywhere all at once. People all over the world had to start working remote without technical infrastructure nor cultural preparation.
But it was great!
We had workers saying like, "Wow, I am more productive working from home.” They were happy to have the flexibility, and companies on the other hand did some calculation on how much money they were saving from office facility. (The biggest reason why companies to go remote is to recruit global talent, but Korean companies don't seem to be interested. How do you achieve global competence while only utilizing only 0.8% of the world's population?)
But our Mr. Managers feels much better when her subordinates are in sight, so he tells them to wear masks to work despite Covid.
Is remote work just for the employees, and is it just Pinocchio's nose growing longer when someone claims working from home works better? Or is it a shortcut to true meritocracy? Is this how we work in the 21st century?
Office mentality is dead
Let's ditch the conveyor belt mentality of standardization and mass production and find a work environment that works for you. Everyone has different biorhythms and different preferences for interior design. What's your favorite morning routine? It doesn't always have to be commuting. When I feel like my brain isn't getting enough blood flow, do I do push-ups or squats? Which scent makes me feel good? Do I want to walk on a treadmill while working on a standing desk? or should I rather invest in an ergonomic chair?
..and the Game Changer is here
What if my coworker was an AI? In the future, the measure of a "skilled worker" will be how well they incorporate AI at work. The cover image of this article was created by an image-generating AI called Midjourney (footnote 3), and the first paragraph was half-written by a conversational AI called ChatGPT. I asked about 10 follow-up questions about neurons and it gladly answered everything in full length. And this blog is translated by DeepL! Another AI thing!
What if my coworker really is an AI?
In the physical world of atoms, you just need a computer and an internet connection to work. In the digital world of zeros and ones, the metaverse, no one needs to be squeezed into cubicles.
Kids Thesedays
In the 6,000-year-old tomb found in Egypt, you can find an inscription that reads
"Young people are rude and impatient.” Socrates said "they're tyrants," and Plato said "What's wrong with kids these days?” Apparently, they must have been spoiled since BC.
Gen Z will make up 27% of the OECD workforce by 2025,
and 30% of the global population(source). They will define the Future of Work, what we do and how we do it. So all the media and analyst firms are groping them, hoping to understand them. But no one can tell the future until it becomes the past!
The World Economic Forum interpreted the graph below as "oh poor kids, they can't find jobs these days," but I personally interpret it as "kids nowadays are creating their own jobs outside the standard occupational categories." (Footnote 4)
One thing's for sure, they're Internet natives who've had access to it since birth, and it's going to be very difficult to convince them to work conveyor-belt style, the way our ancestors did 100 years ago.
Who is remote work for? Employees? Companies that want to increase their productivity? The AI coworker breathing down your neck? Or the new kids on the bloc?
In the next post, let’s talk about how my shift to remote work has led to a shift in my lifestyle.
Footnote 1: While the core Linux OS, including the Linux kernel, is open source, Linux distributions created by Linux related companies such as Red Hat are their "products". These companies are paid to provide Linux-related products/services, such as software upgrades and technical support. Linux core developers are not directly compensated, but may indirectly be, for example by providing related consulting services.
Footnote 2: Manufacturing is not dead. If you look at the history of the world's 10 largest companies over the past 40 years - oil, telecommunications, automotive, electronics, etc. manufacturers - you'll see IBM pop up in the mid-80s, Microsoft in the mid-90s, and Apple in 2010. It wasn't until the late 2010s that we saw the good old IT giants (MAGA - Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon) emerge.
We thought the 20th century was the age of hardware and the 21st century of software, but in reality, we had only recently left the factory.
Footnote 3: Midjourney is a software that creates images with text input. Anyone can create up to 25 images for free. The prompt i used for this post:"An office where humans and AI robots work together, realistic" and the result scared me (far right). I removed the word realistic and added: "cute robots," and it drew miniature robots like bobbleheads on a desk, not as coworkers (left). So I added "realistic" back in and said "humans and robots are coworkers," and a dystopia was born (center). And that's right, Midjourney is the one who recently won the first place in an art competition!
Footnote 4: Nowadays, there are marketplaces that specialize in trading "prompts" for Midjourney and ChatGPT, as well as professionals who create them (related article) and bootcamps that teach you how to write prompts. Does "AI communicator" sound promising?
The rise of physically superior machines in the 20th Century led to fear of job loss, but it turned out there were more new jobs created than lost. So too will the rise of smarter software, tons of new jobs will follow.
Source
Cover image credit: Custom made by Midjourney. See footnote3 for the prompt.
Asynchronous communication illustration: newsletter from the async tribe
Generational infographic source: Mccrindle
Young people's share of the G7 labor force Source: World Economic Forum
feedback: @twinFin22
-fin
