Is this called imposter syndrome?
Thoughts on feeling underprepared, underestimated, and arbitrarily in charge
Dear Friends,
There is that old truism that Americans talk about their jobs while Europeans talk about their vacations. Sometimes it feels like we Americans don’t talk about our jobs so much as we are tempted to signal our status: “I work at an important place and I’m high up in the hierarchy.” I felt this sensation when I worked at Gates Foundation. People seemed impressed by the job, but I sensed little interest in what I did there. For me, it was interesting work that I enjoyed talking about … but also, I was one cog in a large machine, and that machine kept going just fine without me.
I know I’m not alone in feeling this way. There are only around 120 of us at the Hewlett Foundation, so I suppose that I’m a slightly more important cog in a smaller machine … but that machine will chug along more or less the same when I leave in six months. It requires some mental acrobatics to know that your contributions truly matter to your colleagues and the people you serve while at the same accepting that we are all replaceable and that our workplace will go on much the same with or without us.
Perhaps I am stereotypically American in that I genuinely enjoy talking about work. What was the path that led you to your current job? Do you use what you studied in your role? What’s the biggest obstacle to getting your work done? What would you do differently if you were completely in charge? I love those conversations. More than anything, I’m curious about how your job makes you feel.
And so this week I published a piece — dare I call it creative writing? — that aims to give a glimpse of what it feels like (at least for me) to be a program officer at a private foundation. The text intentionally has a dream-like, drifting quality to it; for that’s how I largely experience the world with the jet lag of an 11-hour time difference. Anyway, if you relate to any of it, I’d love to hear from you. Here’re an excerpt and a link to the full piece:
That evening I popped another melatonin and rolled around in bed for 20 minutes until I gave up and flipped on my bedside lamp to read. I chose an essay by Leslie Jamison, who looks like a model, is not yet 40 years old, has published four books, and recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker to explore her feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome. It’s often the highest achievers, I find, who suffer most from low self-esteem.
Before I had read Jamison’s essay, “Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Faking It,” I thought that I suffered from pervasive imposter syndrome. After all, I constantly question why I am the one arbitrarily responsible for making these funding decisions when almost anyone else could do so just as well. But I came to realize that I don’t really suffer from imposter syndrome, at least not as it was originally conceptualized in the 1970s. I think I have an accurate sense of my abilities and shortcomings. In professional circles, lacking any Ivy League degrees or prep school pedigree, I feel underestimated more often than under-prepared. My sense as an imposter has little to do with my own psyche or capabilities, and more to do with the randomness of how we take up the roles we each play on the stage of life.
🎙️ New 12 Inquiries Episode: Experiments in “Analog”
Luis put up the latest episode of our 12 Inquiries podcast about some experimentation we did to make our digital lives less convenient for a week. Nine months into this podcasting project, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t test my input audio before we started recording … so apologies for the crappy audio quality on my end. We continue to explore our usual themes of technology, nostalgia, and intentionality. For me, the conversation gets interesting about halfway through when we explore how we may be losing the experience of persisting through “stuckness.”
🧰 A useful tool: BingGPT
So much has been written about ChatGPT that I don’t have anything unique to add. Here are the four best pieces I’ve come across:
What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram | A useful explainer of how ChatGTP works and the role of optimal randomness to make it feel magical.
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web by Ted Chiang | A delightful New Yorker essay that makes a useful comparison between ChatGPT and image compression.
If you’re not using ChatGPT for your writing, you’re probably making a mistake by Dylan Matthews | Unlike most AI speculation about what might be possible, here’s a helpful rundown of useful ways to use ChatGPT today with help from a Wharton business school professor.
We're asking the wrong question about AI sentience by Matt Yglesias | This is the piece I come back to the most. I think we’re spending way too much time writing about the shortcomings of AI and not nearly enough time considering the shortcomings of the human mind. What’s really astonishing for me isn’t that ChatGPT can fool us, but that our minds are so predictable and irrational.
Let me know if you’ve got others. Anyway, you’ve probably read that ChatGPT came out with version 4, which costs $20 a month, but you can access for free with BingGPT desktop app (or the Bing mobile app, but I much prefer the desktop interface). It’s a massive upgrade from version 3.5. You could use it to summarize a recent trip for your relative, or your boss. But of course, I wouldn’t do that. 😇
I have joined the waitlist for Google’s AI chatbot, Bard. I’m amazed not just by the pace of development of these large language models, but also how quickly (and usefully) they are being incorporated into other apps like Notion and Duolingo. Ezra Klein would like for AI development to slow down, but knows that it will only speed up:
The major tech companies are in a race for A.I. dominance. The U.S. and China are in a race for A.I. dominance. Money is gushing toward companies with A.I. expertise. To suggest we go slower, or even stop entirely, has come to seem childish. If one company slows down, another will speed up. If one country hits pause, the others will push harder. Fatalism becomes the handmaiden of inevitability, and inevitability becomes the justification for acceleration.
🎵 An 80s jam
I was extremely proud of myself for staying out until 2 am with my sister at Club Metro, Japan’s oldest night club, with people mostly 20 years younger than me. It was 80s night and I was a few drinks in when the DJ dropped Baila Bolero by the Italian duo Fun Fun. What a jam! And the video is amaaaazing. If you press play, you gotta stick around for the chorus at 1:12. This one is going on all my dance playlists.
Have a great week!
David