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

by Scott Hartley Narrated by Scott Merriman

Overview

A finalist for the 2016 Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize

A leading venture capitalist offers surprising revelations on who is going to be driving 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 misled the business world for decades: that it's the techies who drive 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. It is they who are bringing context to code, and ethics to algorithms.They also bring the management and communication skills, the soft 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 are at the center of innovation in business, education, and government, and why liberal arts are still relevant in our techie world.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

04/03/2017
Hartley, a venture capitalist with a Stanford political science degree, doesn’t actually spend much of his full-length debut attacking the straw man presented in his introduction, the “dire warnings of certain tech titans” that only STEM degrees matter to the technically-oriented business market of the 21st century and that liberal arts smarts are being undervalued. His actual focus is demonstrating that modern innovation still addresses essentially human problems, and that human-centered design is still central to the development of products that will be successful in the future. Hartley highlights the human skills needed to find the “novel patterns” in big data, shows how high-tech tools such as satellites have become much more accessible to breakthrough thinkers of all backgrounds, and offers case studies of and shout-outs to blended businesses such as StitchFix, which utilizes both algorithms and skilled stylists, and Talkspace, which provides access to lower-cost therapy via an online platform. He also dips into the idea of design ethics, such as those involved in programming self-driving cars or providing people with default choices that affect behavior. Hartley’s perspective is clear but not particularly original; he’s preaching solidly to the choir rather than presenting a radical perspective as he claims. (Apr.)

From the Publisher

You can’t build a wall to keep the robots out. That doesn’t mean we’re doomed. Scott Hartley does a masterful job going beyond the headlines to explain why the future needs engineers as much as it does philosophers, and why the two need each other.”—Ian Bremmer,president of Eurasia Group and author of Superpower
 
“This terrific book clearly articulates the importance of the liberal arts in our technocentric world, a view I have long supported. In the end, technology is about making the lives of humans better, and, as the author argues, it is the humanities and social sciences that teach us about the human condition and how it might be improved. A delightful read!”—John Hennessy, Chairman of Google, Inc. and President Emeritus of Stanford University

 “Scott Hartley artfully explains why it is time for us to get over the false division between the human and the technical. If received and acted upon with the seriousness it deserves, we can anticipate real benefits for business and society.”—Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO and author of Change by Design
 
“Scott Hartley’s timely and thought-provoking book is a refreshing and important voice in the era of major technological transformation and advances in our world, led by Big Data, AI, Cloud, genomics, etc. As nature has evolved our brain to be capable of logical reasoning as well as emotional feelings, artistic expressions, and remarkable intuitions, human civilization has always evolved and benefited from the coevolution of arts, literature, engineering, and sciences. Humanity has begun the era of intelligent machines and genomic wonder tools. It has become more urgent and imperative that humanistic thinking and values can help guide the way technologies are designed, experimented, deployed, and communicated. From digital humanities to humanistic technologies, human wisdom should be all in when it comes to designing and defining our collective future. Students, parents, educators, policymakers, CEOs, and entrepreneurs should all read this book.” —Fei-Fei Li, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab
 
“For generations, leadership has been viewed as an art form, refined and perfected by a healthy dose of ‘fuzzy’ liberal arts education. But in the tech-heavy world of the twenty-first century, traditional leadership preparation needs to be leavened by STEM. As Scott Hartley brilliantly illustrates, a ‘fuzzy-techie’ partnership is a prerequisite—not just as a guide for governments and businesses in meeting existential challenges but also as a foundation for emerging leaders; they, not machines, will be the keys to solving the greatest problems of the new century.”—Daniel W. Christman,lieutenant general (ret.) and 55th superintendent, U.S. Military Academy, West Point  
 
“Great book for all. Blows up the false dichotomy in education between tech and liberal arts. This book shows that not only can both coexist; it is dangerous if they don’t both exist side by side in an integrated manner. They make each other more effective. Scott has done an excellent job of making his argument with facts, illustrative case studies, and well-reasoned solutions. An important and enjoyable read.”—Bill Aulet, author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship and managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship
 
“Silicon Valley is founded on strong engineering cultures, but the biggest challenges of the coming decades will lead Silicon Valley to partner with those who best understand our humanity. Many of the greatest companies are built by fuzzies and techies working together—Scott makes a compelling case that important data and information are increasingly generated by machines, but the wisdom of humans is required to build this data into the knowledge that runs our civilization.”—Joe Lonsdale,cofounder of Palantir
 
“In this book Scott Hartley succeeds better than anyone I know in articulating the indispensable role a liberal arts education plays…One of the impacts of technology has been to democratize freedom scholarship and passion. Scott Hartley lays this out in plain language that a liberal arts education trumps early specialization in STEM subjects.”—Temba Maqubela,headmaster of Groton School
 
“I am a ‘fuzzy’ venture capitalist who owes a successful life in Silicon Valley to the ‘techies.’ Scott Hartley has brilliantly described the magic that is created when these two tribes work together. His insightful book shines a bright light on this rarely analyzed but highly productive relationship.”—Bill Draper, co-chair of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and author of The Startup Game: Inside the Partnership Between Venture Capitalists and Entrepreneurs

APRIL 2017 - AudioFile

Scott Merriman’s narration adds an assertive edge to this big-picture audiobook about what kind of people will be needed for today’s technology to truly serve mankind. His clear phrasing and strong vocal tone will appeal to listeners who gravitate toward this type of book. The author, a liberal arts major who became a Google/Facebook techie and venture capitalist, uses enlightening narratives to capture the putative value differences between classical liberal arts people (fuzzies) and science, technology, engineering, and math people (techies). Hartley shows how fuzzies bring something essential to the challenge of managing today’s technology: They have the management and communication skills needed to spur collaboration and innovation, and they bring human insights to the conflict between what technology can do versus what it should do. T.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169935851
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	04/25/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos