A Renaissance of the Trades
What a dizzying week. Sam Bankman-Fried gets the book thrown at him. (There is justice!) Inflation in developed economies is proving harder to tame. (There is reality!) The Wall Street Journal reports that Gen AI companies like Open AI are waking up to the notion the “Internet Is Too Small” (There is hubris and disillusionment both at once!) There are reports of silly salaries for those able to train and tame the (LLM) machine. (There are talent shortages in our future!)
And finally, we are seeing signs that all roads no longer point to a four year-college education nor the expensive burden that comes with it and finally the trades are coming back in vogue. (There is cause for celebration!)
I remember reading about the artisan carpenters brought in to rebuild Notre Dame and who are the rare few who still know the ancient craft necessary to raise the cathedral. Watchmakers? Weavers? Furniture caning? Magic. Try finding great welders, electricians, or stone layers. Let alone electricians, plumbers, painters, glaziers, floor polishers that can make a home gleam. They are worth their professional weight in gold.
The folks who can rehab, reupholster, repaint, repair our cars are masters. Not all cars are software on wheels just yet. And what about shoemakers? Shoe repair and leather repair? Or tailors and seamstresses that can take anything and make it fit like a glove? Priceless. Sure, there is the ‘H&M’ throw it away culture that permeates too much of our world. Thankfully the next generation has awakened that sleeping giant and the climate reckoning that comes with fast fashion, fast food, fast anything – and the waste that comes with it.
It is heartwarming to see a renaissance of the trades in a world that has revered the college education, white collar roles, and ‘the professions’ as if the trades aren’t that. Try doing what most master tradesmen and women do. They are as important as great doctors and great lawyers and great accountants and certainly many MBAs, hedge fund managers, and PE analysts… Wall Street ‘pros’ and ‘main street pros?’ Let’s just say I’d rather have drains work, toilets flush, lights and heat on during a cold winter day with utility lines going from pole to pole to pole, than a PE playbook in ppt! Maybe that’s my California bias coming through because the streets keep falling into the ocean and our power goes out all the time. So silly.
So, the next gen wakes up to the trades. Amen. Not everyone is meant for college, not everyone is meant to sit at a screen all day. Not everyone is meant to work in an office, behind a desk (let alone standing behind one.) Some people need and want to work outdoors, in the elements, with their hands and their heads. And while the tech elite try to obsolete jobs and give us their non-sense about Effective Altruism, and figure out that all content isn’t on the open web… and their LLMs might starve as a result (or at least regurgitate the same flawed outcomes) reality sets in. The Internet Is Too Small. A real first world problem. It’s refreshing real jobs are real again.
