The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World

by Scott Hartley

One of the nation's leading venture capitalists offers surprising revelations on who is going to be leading innovation in the years to come

Scott Hartley first heard the terms fuzzy and techie while studying political science at Stanford University. If you majored in the humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you majored in the computer sciences, you were a techie. This informal division has quietly found its way into a default assumption that has mistakenly led the business world for decades: that techies are the real drivers of innovation.

But in this brilliantly contrarian book, Hartley reveals the counterintuitive reality of business today: it's actually the fuzzies-not the techies-who are playing the key roles in developing the most creative and successful new business ideas. They are often the ones who understand the life issues that need solving and offer the best approaches for doing so. They also bring the management and communication skills that are so vital to spurring growth.

Hartley looks inside some of today's most dynamic new companies, reveals breakthrough fuzzy-techie collaborations, and explores how such collaborations work to create real innovation.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Technology, Education, Science, Economics, Sociology

304 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2017

About the author

SCOTT HARTLEY is a venture capitalist and startup advisor. He has served as a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the White House, a partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, and a venture partner at Metamorphic Ventures. Prior to venture capital, Hartley worked at Google, Facebook, and Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He is a contributing author to the MIT Press book Shopping for Good, and has written for publications such as the Financial Times, Inc., Foreign Policy, Forbes, and the Boston Review. Hartley speaks on global entrepreneurship with MIT, the World Bank, Google, and the U.S. State Department. He holds an MBA and an MA from Columbia University, and a BA from Stanford University. He is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hartley provides an interesting but ultimately, I think, fatally flawed analysis.

For one thing, on one axis almost everyone he examines is male, and along another axis almost everyone he examines is either entrepreneurial or academic. Women and anyone who's not in a financial position to be entrepreneurial or in an educational position to be academic get pretty short shrift. The working class are dealt with as statistics, when they're considered at all.

And in dealing with the statistics Hartley appears to miss the point as well. At one point he says that only 5% of jobs will be totally eliminated by automation, but that large chunks of the tasks of other jobs will be eliminated, changing the nature of those employees' workdays. It WILL change their workdays, but not in the way he seems to think: If automation eliminates 2/3 of the tasks of my job, my employer will (if I'm lucky) lay off the 2 people on either side of me, consolidate the unautomated 1/3 of each of our jobs into 1 job, and I'll be left as a single worker who thanks to automation is 3 times as productive but thanks to capitalism is no more highly compensated.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe the intended message of this book is important: The liberal arts are essential to our individual and collective well-being, and we need them to save us from reckless tech-mania. Two examples intrigued me: One is "Time Well Spent," an effort by a successful techie to make our tech tools serve our human goals, rather than just make us addled tech-addicts. Another is the Center for Livable Media, which also wants to change design approaches so that our tools "allow people to make choices that are good, not just convenient."

A look at the chapter titles will tell you why I loved this book: "The democratization of tech tools," and "Algorithms that serve - rather than rule - us," also "Making our tech more ethical," and of course, "Enhancing the ways we learn," not to mention "Building a better world." How could I not love this? Pretty sure you will, too.

I would be giving this book 5 stars, because I think everyone (at least, everyone I know) should read it. But here's the thing: There are two books in this one, and they are not separable. One is the business book about how much the liberal arts have already done for tech, and all the money the "fuzzies" have made. While this strand of the book is certainly important - because it explains why the politicians who want to cut the "useless" humanities and social sciences are totally wrong, and why you don't need to worry if you (or your kids) refuse to become computer scientists - everyone I know already knows this to be true, even if they don't know all the details in this book. So, be warned, there's a lot of techno-biz cheerleading along the way (good chance to practice your skimming skills). Still worth a read, if you ask me.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The underlying tension the book explores is whether or not the liberal arts degrees have any value in our technological days and future.

But that's just the same as asking if it has any value in our Agricultural Age or our Industrial Age.

Furthermore, he seems to put liberal arts under these more functional work elements. In this way, the liberal arts is here to serve technology.

But this is not what the liberal arts is in essence. The value of the liberal arts is and never has been based upon its ability to serve those major utilitarian functions of society. It's value and aim has always been the development of the person.

Not that the author doesn't think the liberal arts has this function. Throughout the book, I think his argument is that utilitarian functions are not able to affect the ethical and moral and betterment of people. For this he is correct.

But as I have tried to say, he seems to project the idea that the liberal arts plays a subservient role. Technology is just a tool. And it's a tool that man uses to assist him in his role to be fruitful and multiple and to subdue the earth. But the most important and underlying factor for us to do so comes through the liberal arts. It's these subjects that enable us to be the kinds of people who can be fruitful and multiply and to subdue the earth.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who holds a liberal arts degree, yet works in tech, I was interested in reading this. Many of the examples the author uses are entrepreneurs, but that doesn't mean skills learned in the liberal arts cannot be applied in other facets of tech. There is much to be said for being a well-rounded person, with diverse skills and interests. Skills can be learned, and very few fields/jobs will remain stagnant over the long term. People who can adapt quickly and learn new things and work well with others are best equipped for success in an evolving economy. That said, there wasn't much in here that couldn't have been said equally well in an article or essay, seemed a bit of a stretch to wring an entire book out of the material.

[Harsh Arya · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book feels like as if it has been written by two- three different persons. The first quarter is pretty dull and boring. The usual stuff - of how a balance of poets and quants is needed, with a few cases sprinkled here and there.
Towards the second half, the book makes some interesting propositions - on making technology more as an enabler of choice rather than the current cookie cutter approach, making learning more inclusive and ofcourse, the future of jobs.
Overall an okeish read which doesn't go through significant peaks or troughs.
A major negative - this book uses a lot of mentions in the Indian context. Don't know if that has been done deliberately to boost sales in the sub-continent, but it makes it look in authentic.

[Nick Frazier · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, Scott Hartley, makes the argument that the modern world can't rely upon STEM to solve our problems. Instead, it is the combination of liberal arts and STEM training that provides the best solutions. Many of Silicon Valley's largest companies are the result of STEM/Liberal Arts collaboration with the founders. For example, Steve Jobs famously drew inspiration from a Calligraphy class when designing the aesthetic for Apple products.

Throughout the book, the author argues for cross-collaboration and diverse teams of people trained in STEM and liberal arts education. The varied thinking provides a better solution. Throughout the book, he provides case studies of where the two seemingly different perspectives provide unique, and ultimately insightful, approaches.

This book is an excellent companion read to Range by David Epstein. Epstein argued for individuals to be broadly trained. Hartley focuses primarily on building teams of diverse backgrounds focused on the scale of STEM to liberal arts.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read. For those of us who've considered ourselves techies, this is a good encouragement to learn more about the 'fuzzy' side of work and life.

For those who consider themselves 'fuzzies', this book is a great encouragement to boost their techie skills.

[Buddy Scalera · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept for a long article or conference presentation, but was not effective as a book.

Long, meandering chapters that didn't seem to support the core concept for the book. The introduction and first chapter started off well, but the book lost focus in the case studies.

The author is a good writer and should write a tightly focused follow-up book.

[Prachi Paranjpye · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book for everyone who has taken up humanities. It helps build perspective and motivates to learn data and statistics.

[Bev Simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book. I like the premise that the world of jobs is not all about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) which is getting a lot of airtime right now. Even as they are emerging in a highly technologized world, most jobs require a high degree of Arts knowledge (See teamwork and Emotional Intelligence literature, for example). Hence the importance of STEAM, not just STEM. The Arts and Design are important in all jobs and never more so than now. The Classics, History and all that is learned in non-science courses is not only valuable but highly necessary in the world we are creating in the 21st C. Hartley makes the point that jobs (in health care, Nursing, for example) require a good knowledge of Science and Math, as well as a strong knowledge of Human Behaviour, Ethics, Sociology, and Psychology. A sense of History and a working knowledge of Literature help a whole lot as well. A tech-driven future without that kind of broad knowledge will not create the lives we want to live, he argues. Innovation is key and entrepreneurs are hugely important to both successful economies and to creating a world that works well for people. Those with only STEM knowledge without the Humanities will not satisfy the needs of a global world. Hartley gives us numerous examples of how people with the two knowledge bases (Fuzzies and Techies) working together have created a wide variety of successful initiatives that work for people. He argues that a broad knowledge base is important especially for creating and developing the assumptions that underpin the algorithms that drive innovation. Ethics must play a part in all we do with technology, technology has to work for real people and to be successful as a human species we must attend to creating the world we want to live in, a world that supports the best of human nature.

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

As someone who straddles fuzzy and techie roles daily, I thought this would be 350 pages of telling me what I want to hear. Instead I was entirely underwhelmed. Too often, his entire argument boiled down to "fuzzies can be smart too" and his evidence is primarily anecdotal. It's pretty easy to posit that not all fuzzies are stupid and destined for failure -- it would have been much more useful and interesting to evaluate what the ratio of fuzzy to techie will or should be and why.

I do agree with his central claim that 'data do not speak for themselves, we need smart questioners', but it seems a leap too far to believe that humanities majors are uniquely prepared for this role, or that STEM majors are unable to develop the skills he praises and work as teams, contextualize data, or ask the right questions.

My biggest complaint is that he continually classifies people as fuzzy and techie based on what they studied in college. For most of his featured successful fuzzies, that's less than half the story ... their desire and ability to pick up technical skills was as or more critical to their success than their original degrees. And while softer technical skills like data literacy and contextualization may be useful, it's remains difficult to build a convincing resume out of them. More to the point, his assertion that tech companies are hungry for liberal arts majors didn't ring true for me: perhaps because of the difficulty of measuring and evaluating and expressing their skills, and because I'm regularly affected by the current corporate battles for skilled STEMs and haven't seen anything remotely comparable for non-techie skillsets.

[Michayla (WaitingfortheSecondStar) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book really made me feel good about my liberal arts background (and employment at a liberal arts university). So many people who work in the tech industry started in liberal arts, and this book makes an excellent case for why that should continue. I do feel that the book got a little long--Hartley probably could have simply written an article on the topic, rather than trying to pull in so many examples. So I mostly skimmed the sections that didn't interest me and focused on the parts that relate closely to my own work.

I also think Hartley fails to mention that he is talking about a very specific kind of "fuzzy," and not all fuzzies in general. Most of the stories in this book focus on those interested in learning technology to bring about a greater good (which is completely awesome), but some people did not pursue undergraduate technology degrees because they do not want to study technology (I know. Shocker.). I think even those with liberal arts backgrounds who don't end up entrepreneurs of a new technology tool will also be able to contribute to the techie future--without working at Chick-fil-A. I know this wasn't a focus of the book, but I felt like it was a large gap Hartley overlooked in the end.

Overall, an encouraging and engaging read. I definitely think he makes a good case for the teams that should be created including both fuzzies and techies in the future.

[Sudheendra Fadnis · Rating 3 out of 5]

In our education system today, we see a clear line of demarcation between the liberal arts such as literature, history, philosophy, political science, anthropology, sociology , psychology etc and pure sciences such as physics, mathematics, biology and chemistry . But the author says that it is a false dichotomy. That's why in the Stanford school they call those who study the liberal arts as Fuzzies and those who study science as Techies. But, they are not mutually exclusive subjects. They need each other; in fact, they complement each other.

I read this book because the title was very appealing to me. Yes, going by how the first chapter went, it was very interesting. But as the book progresses, the author elaborates on the implications of liberal arts such as political science, anthropology, sociology, literature and psychology among many others in the field of technology such as Big Data, International security, defence etc. I had very high expectations from this book, but there were so many case studies and examples given about people who were solving the most pressing problems of our times using the skill set and knowledge that they have gained through liberal arts education, which at times sounds boring to me. In fact, the author could have gone at length on the importance of various subjects such literature, philosophy, history etc to ignite the interest of the reader to know more.

The book starts with the story of a girl by name Katelyn Gleason, who with her degree in theatre arts made her way into becoming the head of the sales department of a healthcare start-up company. She leveraged on her acting skills to impress Paul Graham in raising funds for her company, who in turn convinced her to start her own company. That's how she came up with the idea of the health care start-up Eligible. Had it not been for her theatre arts background, it would not have been possible for her to have achieved so much. Yes, technical skills are important. But it is the soft skills that is gained through liberal arts education that gave her the edge. I think, the way he started the book by giving the example of Katelyn Gleason was really good.

I also learnt from this book that the CEOs of many world famous companies such as Pinterest, Slack, YouTube, Alibaba, Sales force, etc have liberal arts background. The best example is that of Steve Jobs who fused technology with arts. In that sense, he was a true genius. This book also highlights the erroneous opinion of the iconic entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla that investment in liberal arts is waste of time and resources. But, in my opinion they are dead wrong. Now that machines are slowly matching the intellectual might of humans, it is only the liberal arts education that will come to the rescue.

The book touches on various points such as ethics of using the technology in the right way, the future job market, enhancing the ways we learn, algorithm that are our servants rather than our rulers etc are very nicely explained. But the author went overboard on giving so many examples about so many people who have initiated the start-ups and the impact that they had that, at times, it feels like the reader is being inundated with so much of information.

In fact the need of the hour is the cross-pollination between the two realms of studies. If technology is about what and how, the liberal arts answer the question why. That's the exact reason why we need liberal arts.

[Federico Carciaghi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The emphasis should not be on teaching these skills exclusively, and not only on this nearer-term skills gap. Those being taught the STEM skills should also be afforded the opportunity to develop the proficiencies fostered by the liberal arts, which will make them more agile and employable workers in tomorrow's economy. [...] We should be balancing this with a liberal arts education that develops more rounded skills and wider perspectives, instilling strengths in both the technical and the fuzzy abilities. The debate over STEM versus liberal arts has obscured the fact that the so-called pure sciences, such as biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, are a core component of the liberal arts canon, and that computer science has in many cases also been added to the canon. A false dichotomy has been established between liberal arts and STEM education; students can very well get both at once".

Meglio una laurea in Lettere o una in Ingegneria?
Fuzzy e Techie sono due appellativi che ricorrono negli Stati Uniti, a Stanford, per definire in modo un po' denigratorio forse, coloro che si laureano nelle "Humanities" e quelli che invece conseguono un titolo nelle cosiddette STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Due scuole di pensiero, due mondi contrapposti. Ma è davvero così? Vi è realmente questo divario incolmabile fra materie umanistiche e scientifiche? Oppure è possibile creare dei ponti e un dialogo fra loro?
Scott Hartley accetta la sfida di provare a smentire il fatto che il mondo sarà sempre più "techie", un mondo fatto solo di intelligenze artificiali, macchine che si guidano da sole, e lavori sempre più automatizzati. Attraverso la sua esperienza personale e l'ampia analisi di case studies, si delinea un saggio brillante ed interessante. Un mondo senza umanesimo è praticamente impossibile; anche gli algoritmi e le intelligenze artificiali hanno bisogno ancora del fattore umano. Le materie umanistiche sono imprescindibili e, secondo Hartley, sono il sale dello sviluppo tecnologico. Solo facendo dialogare psicologia e antropologia, ingegneria e matematica, solo dialogando fra fuzzy e techie sarà possibile creare una tecnologia veramente al servizio dell'uomo e dei problemi che attanagliano il nostro mondo. Parafrasando alcuni capitoli del libro, perciò, "adding the human factor to Big Data", "making our technology more ethical" e la creazione di "algorithms that serve - rather than rule - us" sono degli imperativi che solo attraverso un dialogo costante fra i due campi si può raggiungere.
Un libro, dunque, per un'etica del sapere. Highly recommended!

"Fuzzies are helping to bridge divides between specialities, making unexpected connections between problems and the technological means of addressing them [...]. They are sharing vital insights about how the human factor can and should be accounted for, and how the new technologies can be best used to improve our lives".

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides an interesting perspective in looking at the current high tech-laden start-ups and businesses with a different angle. With the current exponential growth in digital technology and AI revolution as a backdrop, the author, Scott Hartley, who is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and has worked in Google and Facebook, argues that people with a liberal arts education play an increasing important role in today's high-tech world.

One of the key themes of the book revolves around the popular debate about Artificial Intelligence (AI) vs. Intelligence Augmentation (IA). There are questions like: are most of the jobs going to be taken over by machines? Or are tasks within a job disappear, freeing the workers to focus on things that are more human-centric? The author highlights the fundamental skills that are important for future's economy. These are the soft skills, such as interpersonal, creativity, critical thinking, reading comprehension, logical analysis, argumentation, clear and persuasive communication.

With the technology advancing rapidly and widely accessible, building a business nowadays involves integrating the readily available tools and software stack and applying to solve human and societal problems. To be successful, leaders are following a human-centered approach rather than pure-technological driven approach. There are many examples cited in the book, where leaders with liberal arts background drive the innovation and business disruption in Silicon Valley and other parts of the world.

As for the book title, the "Fuzzy" refers to those with liberal arts major and "Techie" refers to those in technology. The book is not about the competition but rather the intersection between liberal arts and technology.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a liberal arts major I have confirmation bias to love this book. I don't buy the argument completely, but the author does a great job arguing for the role of liberal arts grads in the high-tech world. The book was very readable - I read it in one day. The chapters on jobs and design etihcs were the best, the chapter on building a greater good wasn't so interesting.

Hartley's basic argument is that liberal arts majors have to serious hard skills mainly logic and communication. A need for user center desinged highlights the role of inituite, feeling, empathic people who tend to be liberal arts majors and can't be easily replaced with AI.

Hartley's really aruging that the two sides should work together, not that LA major will take over Silicon Valley.

My beef with this is that while I conceed there are plenty of successful LA major's in tech, they still represent a small percentage of all LA majors. The average LA major ins't getting a tech job. He gives a great example of theater major becoming a health-tech CEO, but I have alot more examples of theater majors waiting tables in manhattan for life. The average STEM major has a better shot, but the better advice is don't be average.

[Daren Fulwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a very simplistic view of this book - I don’t think that the premise of fuzzy vs techie is really what it’s about. It’s strapline “Why the liberal arts will rule the digital world” is not even in line with the content or the conclusions.

Hartley walks through a whole load of case studies where tech is used as a tool by “fuzzies” to the greater good, and these are thought provokingly chosen. I went off on numerous tangents checking out projects from the pages of the book.

For me, the point to this is pointing out the limitations of a pure technical approach. Each case - from new ways to buy clothes online, to highly automated gold mining - was considered successful when the technical effort was balanced with humanity and experience that can only come from people with a wider view.

Tech can be used for good and bad, or can be delivered in a useful or useless way, and the balance is how the creators of the capability empathise with the ultimate users or beneficiaries.

Worth a read.

[Pam Bedore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book addresses a really important issue--the importance of the liberal arts to our tech-forward, globalized world--with lots of great examples. I like the reclaiming of terms: the techie is the STEM major and the fuzzy is the liberal arts major. Hartley goes through chapter after chapter with examples of fuzzies who have been instrumental in the creation of innovative products and companies. His argument that most major companies require a combination of well-educated people from across a range of disciplines certainly strikes me as pretty uncontroversial.

He provides a few studies that provide evidence for the benefits of a liberal arts education. I would have been happy to have more.

I also wonder if the book would be stronger with a more expansive, better developed argument. I honestly think that saying the book argues for the importance of the liberal arts with evidence from anecdotes and a few studies is a pretty fulsome description. I'd be happy to hear of other texts that make a more complex argument about our epistemological and cultural futures.

[Marianne Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In "The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World" by Scott Hartley there are several short story examples of how people who are not "techies" are becoming leaders in our very tech centered world and economy. They use examples of theatre majors using their acting skills to make successful presentations to obtain funding/backers for their projects. That tech support can be bought or learned, but that even in a world that seems very technical, we need the dreamers and innovators to to be the creative force behind the tech. A breath of fresh air for non-techies that are constantly being told that they are being left behind in our present world. This could have been a really dull book, but it was not. The writing was very informative yet still readable and entertaining.

[Cliff Chew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is better than the book Sensemaking, at least in terms of its writing style. This book is also more balanced in its view, which I feel is the main reason why I feel the style of this book is more towards my taste.

This book has some good breadth in it's coverage, with several very interesting cases of the importance of fuzzy people (liberal arts people) utilizing their skill sets, being able to contribute in a world seemingly driven by techie (STEM) people.

Although this book provides no clear framework to help you be more fuzzy, I feel that it's still a very interesting overarching book that will expand your mind, especially if you feel that the future world will be run by STEM people.

[Paul Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Core idea is good but the book essentially is just a long list of examples of people with liberal arts backgrounds who have made important contributions to STEM dominated fields.

There are some interesting discussions of AI and some other good parts, but the book smacks of the author having an opinion and then just finding lots of examples to support that opinion and not much more. Also, anyone who actually reads this book is already going to be predisposed to agree with the premise (I can't imagine many STEMlords, if such a caricature even exists, picking this one up) so like, yeah, what's the point really? Making liberal arts majors feel good about themselves?

Don't get me wrong, I found it interesting enough, but there are too many flaws to go beyond three stars

[Susan Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book to learn a lot about techie things I did not know before. My kids are techie and this book does a great job explaining in really simple language how things like algorithms work. It's a book of stories so very capitulating. The innovators are fuzzies, or people with liberal arts backgrounds, not engineers. Surprisingly so many companies like Pinterest and YouTube and so many others are run by or founded by people with all sorts of degrees. I loved this book and the message of real hope when all I seem to hear about is jobs lost, etc. I'd highly recommend for graduates, students, and parents.

[Jim Willse · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure the author makes his case that the kind of liberal arts education most of us know really feeds into the tech landscape. Two problems: most of the educational examples he cites aren't all that "fuzzy" -- economics, linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology -- and are pretty much generated from elite campuses like Stanford and MIT. That said, the central thesis makes sense -- "Our education, products and institutions should ideally all be one part fuzzy and one part techie ..." That means even theater majors and philosophers should be comfortable with data sets ("data literacy"), the function (and limitations) of algorithms and the potential of digital design. The good news is that technology is infinitely more accessible than even a few years ago -- you don't have to understand the engine to drive the car. Many of the best case studies involve smart people stitching together established software into new applications -- "chunking", as Uber does with Google maps.

[Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting and thought provoking read. It really opened my eyes to how necessary it is for the humanities to work with those in the tech fields in order to better understand human/computer interactions. We can't have one or the other, tech and the humanities must grow together in order to improve our technology and then also improve our society.

I was skeptical about reading this book, as it is nonfiction and I don't generally have an interest in that kind of literature, however I was consistently engaged throughout my read.

I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the future of technology with the help of those skilled in the humanities.

[Zack Rearick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting to hear a Silicon Valley venture capitalist make the case for the liberal arts. In spite of rapid technological advances and a current fixation on career-specific STEM education, "fuzzy" skill sets will remain valuable — even prized — in the digital world. Hartley gives good examples of liberal arts people taking leadership roles in techie spaces, and bouncing successfully between fuzzy and techie fields, and even blending them in emerging areas like usability, data visualization, etc.

[Eric Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good arguments here for continuing pursuit of humanities and liberal arts education and the sociological, anthropological, philosophical, and ethical skills required to successfully parse said study effectively.

We do ourselves a great disservice when assuming that "coding" is necessary to succeed in the 21st century economy. Ingenuity and innovation don't come solely from hard coding skills. They come from soft skills that are relational and humanistic. How can you solve a problem if you can't recognize it in the first place?

[Jo Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me of Daniel H. Pink’s A Whole New Mind, which gives hope to those worried about automation taking over everyone’s jobs and leaving everybody but third worlders unemployed. No, fear not, because it’s the “fuzzy” liberal arts way of thinking that will continue to solve problems. Chapter 6, Enhancing the Ways We Learn, brought to mind YouTuber Veritasium’s “This Will Revolutionize Education,” which uses evidence to support the fact that learning is best done in a community of learners with caring, passionate teachers inspiring thinkers. I’m not yet redundant!

[Anna Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

I may be slightly biased, being a fuzzy in tech myself, but This book does an amazing job of breaking down the benefits to having a different, and very human perspective that can ultimately help our tech grow. It also thoroughly discusses where tech may improve but not necessarily replace our jobs. A good read for anyone who needs a little inspiration to think a little differently about what they do.

[Amit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fuzzy + Techie : My only thought is do not mix it with your corporate position since that remains leaning deeply towards the latter.
Otherwise, book has a lot of impact, for an Asian reader, it leaves a lot of ideas to have a basic grasp about, for which some additional research is required.
This is not one of those whom you could quickly skim through and put to rest. This may remain a Work IN Progress for sometime at least if you'd like to do justice to it.

[Minette Norman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. I am a liberal artist who spent 30 years in the software industry, and I believe in the premise that the liberal arts are a great background for the digital world. This book, however, reads as if it was written by a venture capitalist--oh, quelle surprise, it was! The author's biases come through loud and clear in this work. There was nothing new or insightful in the book.