21Apr21 | Exploration vs exploitation in careers

The Problem

There's a well-known problem in the world of Artificial Intelligence called "The Exploration-Exploitation Problem".

In simple terms: Exploration is when a computer tries different (new) actions in order to obtain better rewards. Exploitation is when it takes advantage of what it already knows (same) actions in order to obtain favorable -but familiar- results. Balancing the trade-off between both is what makes a computer able to take intelligent-enough decisions.

Now my hypothesis is that this is the same trade-off you'll likely face in your career. And you'll likely be in a bad place if you decided to ignore it. Exploration helps open your mind and expand your view; lets you aware about possibilities you never knew existed. Exploitation helps you be consistent enough to reap the rewards of your repeated actions; lets you experience compounding and see more results in less time.

So while making yourself known for something helps compound growth for your own personal brand, you have to consider 10 years down the line when you decide you want to change what you do for a living. Will you have to start over?

Most people spend their lives drastically exploiting their existing options and thus never have more. It messes with their aspirations and limits their potential. In an attempt to seek stability, this becomes the quickest way to get rid of it. If you don't have a few anchors from which you can choose one to default to at any time in your career, you're only challenging your future self. Diversifying yourself while you're young is like keeping a safety net.

Your mind is a very capable computer with ever-changing inputs. You don't know which input affects which decision. It's perfectly okay if I decided to drop out at any time. And this fact actually makes my work multiple times more interesting.

I've been in tech for a few years and I find words like "job promotion", "corporate ladder" or "job description" so lame. Why would I ever tie my identity to a certain set of skills that I presumably decide I'd exploit for the rest of my life? I see my main focus of expertise as a long-form experiment.

Starting Over

The idea behind exploitation develops nicely from the "Law of Effect" in behavioral psychology. It's a belief that a pleasing after-effect strengthens the action that produced it. It states: Responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation.

That is the main reason most people almost disregard exploration and only consider it when they're stuck. Stuck in a situation of any type. They start to do the work they should've done a long time beforehand, when they were more comfortable. The problem with this is that it makes them more prone to settle for less. They explore just enough to settle for the first thing they'd encounter.

This is harsh, but it's a fact: Most people would settle for less just to say they have something. And it makes all the difference when you're doing the exploration work out of comfort rather than out of discomfort.

When you look at the greatest achievers in history, they embrace the idea of starting over more than their peers.

Like in 1994 when Michael Jordan decided to switch from basketball to baseball on his 31st birthday ––I was watching 2020's "The Last Dance" and I can safely say this was one of my favorite parts. He invested his heart & soul into a sport that fundamentally flexes different muscles, a totally different game.

Here is the greatest basketball player of all time, and he’s looking at me to say "Teach me" ~MJ's baseball training partner

Another interesting story is of Elon Musk's in the early 2000's. In his early years of business, Elon Musk switched contexts faster than what any ordinary person would think is sane. He was called an idiot for starting over & doing something brand new that he's supposedly not qualified for. There're lots of examples of iconic people starting over.

The LinkedIn Networking Model

I want to talk about LinkedIn for that matter because, although I use it, I really think the LinkedIn networking model is flawed.

LinkedIn is forcing you to connect with people using an identity that's only getting reinforced over time. You have to choose one identity & fit everything you know or do under that umbrella to stay relevant on the platform. Your profile, past experiences & posts have to serve your headline/area of expertise. And that's the only way your profile can make sense to your network.

I did an interesting experiment over the past couple months where I changed my headline on LinkedIn 3 times with each time narrowing down my focus of work a little bit. The number of post views, profile views & connection requests differed each time by an order of magnitude. I get it's kind of how things work on the platform, and I am okay with that. But I am not okay with seeing myself *as* my job. Which all of us do on LinkedIn with others & with ourselves in a way or another.

I think the whole idea is brought over from office spaces where everyone can do one thing & can do it well. And it makes people want to further reinforce their identities on the platform by posting more relevant certificates/achievements that scream "I can do this pretty well".

In my opinion this belief hinders one's ability to learn & try new things, which can in lots of ways lead to better results.

Constraints

Another perk of applying more exploration weight to your career is the ability to add constraints to your work. Adding more constraints to your craft makes it far easier to get to the top 1%.

Imagine that among all people doing X, you're the one who's capable of doing X in coordination with Y pretty well. This can be a differentiator even if you're not as capable of doing X alone.

When you combine things you are not supposed to combine, you get more interesting as a person. And to relevant people, that can be the real networking hack.

These 3 minutes from Joe Rogan's podcast from 2019 touches on the same concept in a neat & summarized way:

At the end, I am not in favor of going all-in on exploration, but rather being mindful of the weights you're applying to the trade-off between exploration & exploitation. It protects you from getting lost. Makes you not afraid to start over & opens a wide array of possibilities, each of which has comparable percentages of success.