🌊 Career Strategy #9: Surfing A Wave

Being in the right place at the right time can be a matter of luck... but also a winning career strategy.

Oct 10, 2024

Welcome back to Fuzzy’s Career Strategy Series, where we share research-backed strategies & stories to help you realise your best career.

Part 1: 👋 Introducing the Career Strategy Series
Part 2: 🪜 Ladder Climbing as a Strategy
Part 3: 👩‍🎓 Controlled Supply as a Strategy
Part 4: 🥇 Excellence in a Power Law Field as a Strategy
Part 5: 🔍 Niche-ing as a Strategy
Part 6: 🧱 Skill-stacking as a Strategy
Part 7: 👷 Be A Generalist as a Strategy
Part 8: 📊 The Portfolio Career as a Strategy
Part 9: 📣 Building a Platform as a Strategy
Part 10: 🌊 Wave-surfing as a Strategy
Part 11: 🏗️ Adding Leverage as a Strategy
Part 12: 🌏 Proximity as a Strategy
Part 13: ⏱️ Sequencing as a Strategy

There are thousands of possible pathways for your career, but our research found there are ~10-15 dominant career strategies, which can be layered together if needed - and we’ll be breaking those down for you in this series.

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I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. But many others were also in the same place. The difference was that I took action. - Bill Gates

🌊 Introducing Strategy #9: Surfing A Wave

How do you become the most feared & respected journalist in tech?

One option: follow the example of Kara Swisher…

Who turned down prestigious opportunities covering politics in Washington to follow her instincts, move to Silicon Valley three decades ago and document the rise of the modern tech industry from the beginning.

This one is a career strategy known as wave-surfing.

Swisher’s ability to spot the rise of Silicon Valley - and many other waves across her career - has set her apart, and we’ll unpack her story later.

But first, let’s dive in & learn more about the strategy!

💰 Defining wave-surfing.

Joining a 'wave' involves joining a field where the demand (for goods & services being produced) is growing rapidly.

This often happens by spotting a new cultural shift or economic boom early, then positioning yourself to catch and ‘surf’ that wave to success 🏄🏄

For example, training as an AI software engineer several years ago would be excellent positioning to take advantage of the explosive growth in demand for those skills since the launch of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and the rush to explore their many potential uses across the economy 📈

⚙️ How it works.

Many strategies we’ve already discussed in this series focus on how demand and supply affect your ‘odds’ in a career - like controlled supply, power law excellence, niche-ing & skill-stacking.

And the power of wave-surfing also comes from the interplay between supply and demand in a field ⚡

When demand sky-rockets suddenly in an industry, it creates opportunities for accelerated career growth in several ways:

Faster growth within companies🏃🏽: Less existing hierarchy within companies means new joiners to a field can gain experience early, advance more quickly, and may even have a better ‘finger on the pulse’ of cultural and technology changes.
Build influential networks 🤝: At the beginning of new industries & ‘golden eras’, early entrants often build close networks which give them future access to information, opportunities & allies - like the famous group of company founders who came out of the internet payments startup Paypal, known as the Paypal Mafia.
Capture value for yourself 💸: If an industry’s total revenue or influence is growing rapidly, there is more opportunity to create new companies or entities which can capture some of that growth (like starting a digital marketing agency when high-speed internet, smartphones & social media shifted an enormous amount of marketing dollars from traditional media to online).
A rising tide lifts all boats 🚣‍♀️: The opposite of hyper-competitive power law fields like acting or professional sport (where the supply of aspiring superstars vastly outstrips demand), the broader upwards trend in growth industries means that you can still experience rapid career growth without having to be #1 or exceptional!

Spotting The Big Waves Coming 🌊

History is full of dramatic cultural & economic shifts which created opportunity for individuals to ‘surf the wave’ 🏄

And whether you think on a timescale of decades, like… ⏱️

The post-WWII economic boom, when the U.S. economy grew at an average annual rate of 4% during the 1950s and global trade increased by over 600% from 1948 to 1973,
The global telecommunications boom, when mobile phone subscribers globally grew from 11 million in 1990 to over 700 million by 2000, laying the foundation for today’s mobile-connected world,
The globalisation boom, which increased world trade from $6.5 trillion in 2000 to $19 trillion by 2019, fuelled by emerging markets and global supply chains,

Or a timescale of centuries, like… ⏱️

The medieval Agricultural Revolution, which doubled the European population from 38 million in 1000 to 74 million by 1300 due to increased agricultural output,
The Song Dynasty Economic Boom, involving technological innovations like gunpowder, compasses and paper money, which meant that by the 11th century, China had the world’s largest economy and first urban centres with populations exceeding 1 million,
The First Industrial Revolution, in which steam engines and mechanised production increased Britain’s textile output by over 50 times from 1780 to 1850,
The Second Industrial Revolution, which increased steel production in the U.S. from 68,000 tons in 1870 to over 10 million tons by 1900, fuelling infrastructure growth,
The 19th Century Telegraph & Telephone Boom, which meant that by the late 1800s, telegraph cables connected Europe and North America, revolutionising global communication (by 1900, over 1.4 million telephones were installed in the U.S.)…

… these waves often have a few common features.

🔍 So how do you spot a coming wave?

Well, there are a few common ‘sparks’ which often catalyse a big wave of opportunity to watch out for:

A scientific discovery,
A new technology and its knock-on effects,
A demographic shift and its knock-on effects
A realignment of the social order, freeing up capital and resources for new purposes, or
The opening of links with new cultures & markets, finding new buyers or uses for products

The double-edged sword of wave-surfing: the hype cycle 😟

Especially when it comes to new technologies, hype and excitement about the limitless potential for transformation are common.

But so are the let-downs that sometimes follow.

And this is known as the hype cycle.

The hype cycle is also a visual model that captures how new technologies or innovations go through five key stages - from an initial phase of excitement and inflated expectations, followed by disillusionment when the technology doesn’t deliver as hoped, to eventual understanding of its real-world benefits and adoption.

Introduction to the Gartner Hype Cycle – BMC Software | Blogs

It helps explain why some technologies are overhyped early on but can still succeed after going through a period of skepticism.

And if you’re thinking about going all-in on an emerging technology or trend, it can be a helpful and sobering exercise to check out a few years worth of Gartner Hype Cycles - which show emerging technologies and where they sit on the journey!

You’ll see some technologies turn out to be truly revolutionary - but also many which under-deliver on the sky-high expectations of their early days.

🎙️ Case Study: Kara Swisher surfing the wave of tech journalism.

"Kara Swisher's work has had a profound influence on how we understand technology and its role in society, making her one of the most important figures in modern journalism." - Vox

Never heard of Kara Swisher before?

You can check out this profile, this podcast and this interview - and you should, because she’s fearless, hilarious and incisive.

All you need to know for now is that since the dawn of the internet in the 1990s, she’s become seen as the leading journalist covering one of the most influential industries of our age - the world of tech, and Silicon Valley.

Kara Swisher on X: "Ok I was ready for my closeup this week for new podcast photos, so need tweep feedback of whether this one by @thatssopiotr too Keith Richards/Pancho on CHiPs — She also loves wearing aviators.

So what drove her success?

🔭 1 Spotting the Silicon Valley wave early.

Swisher graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in the mid-1980s, after realising she couldn’t pursue her first career choice (being a spy!) because of her sexuality - and started her journalism career at The Washington Post as an intern.

But instead of following a conventional path of ‘paying her dues’ by taking prestigious assignments covering politics in the capital, she decided soon after that she wanted to move to The Wall Street Journal and cover what was then seen as a nerdy backwater - technology and the rise of the internet.

By being first to the Silicon Valley wave, Swisher got to know many of the future titans of the tech industry - like the founders of Google, Apple, Amazon, Tesla and more - before they were famous.

How Silicon Valley Broke the Economy | The Nation — Steve Jobs, John Sculley, and Steve Wozniak, 1984.

And by the late 1990s, consumers were connecting en masse to the internet and the dotcom boom was taking off in earnest, which left Swisher in perfect position to chronicle the story of the industry - as one of a few mainstream reporters with deep sources and relationships within Silicon Valley.

From there on, her reputation only grew, with influential books, podcasts and positions covering the rise of tech for Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New York Magazine & Washington Post.

"Few journalists have been covering Silicon Valley as long as Kara Swisher. And even fewer are as respected, liked, and feared by the tech industry and its most iconic leaders." - The Atlantic

🔭 2 Always looking for the next wave.

Not unlike the tech founders she covers, Swisher has never been satisfied with ‘the way things have always been done’.

Instead of being passively impacted by the broader decline of media business models like many journalists, Swisher has effectively spent her career operating as both a journalist and a media entrepreneur.

By spotting new mediums & formats early, and being willing to ‘disrupt’ her own career to avoid being disrupted, she repeatedly created outlets which defined the wider conversation in tech coverage and created career security on her own terms - from creating the tech website AllThingsD in 2003, the All Things D conference in 2007, the publication Recode in 2013, the podcast Recode Decode in 2018, and more.

Some of Our Fave D Conference Videos Before AllThingsD Signs Off - Kara Swisher - News - AllThingsD — Swisher & her AllThingsD cofounder Walt Mossberg interviewing Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple & Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft

Career Advice from Kara Swisher👇

"Taking risks is essential. If you’re not willing to step outside your comfort zone and embrace uncertainty, you may miss out on incredible opportunities that can propel your career forward."
“Be your genuine self. Don’t edit yourself. Women especially do this because we’re raised to be people-pleasers.”
“Live life so you don’t have regrets. My dad died when he was 34, and I saw early on how ephemeral life can be. So I always try to do what I think is the right thing to do—I don’t try to screw people—and I live without apology.”
“I’ll walk away from anything, I always feel like I can make something else.”

Want to learn more about Swisher & the history of Silicon Valley?

Get a great overview of her time covering tech from the 1990s to now in her memoir Burn Book: A Tech Love Story.

🧠 Keep in mind.

Wave-surfing can supercharge your career, but there are a few things to consider before you follow this strategy:

💣 Hype vs. reality: Is the industry you’re considering a true boom, or just a mirage built on hype?
- From 3D printing, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, bitcoin and cryptocurrency, to the stalling of Japanese economic growth in the 1990s or the explosion of the US housing boom that catalysed the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 - economic history is littered with much-hyped technologies & economic trends that haven’t delivered the expected growth (or at least not on the expected timeline).
- Do your research and try to build a realistic probability-weighted view of the scenarios that can unfold, rather than just following the hype.
👔 Personal fit: Sure, an industry might look prestigious, attractive, or like it’s about to experience huge growth - but is it something you will actually find satisfying to work in? Or are you just following the crowd into something you won't enjoy?
🧘🏿‍♀️ Optionality: You can hedge the risk of a boom crumbling, or of not enjoying the work in an industry, by building skills and credentials which can easily be transferred in other fields a.k.a. optionality.