Breakthrough Tool! Skill Stacking for a Comeback: Master this second skill and your value will double.

This weekend, I had dinner with a friend who recently became a father.

He was a cheerful person, but as we were chatting, he suddenly sighed and said to me, "What I fear most now is not that my child won't get into a good university, but that after studying hard for more than 20 years, he will end up as a part that can be unscrewed and replaced at any time."

I was stunned for a moment.

This sounds a bit harsh, but if you say it's wrong, it seems like you can't find fault with it.

Following his words, I suddenly realized something that was actually quite important.

If we treat people as products, we can categorize them into standardized and non-standardized products.

I think this classification method is worth listening to carefully by every working person and every parent.

Standard products are easy to understand.

The market is large, demand is strong, and production is done in batches with assembly line delivery.

Cashier, junior programmer, junior graphic designer, junior accountant, basic e-commerce operations – these positions are all standardized products in the end.

You are in this position, being selected from the same pool as a hundred people similar to you.

Buy whichever is cheapest and easiest to use.

For companies, standardized talent is no different from a cog in a machine.

If a screw is rusty, unscrew it, replace it, and the machine will keep running.

And have you noticed that with this wave of AI , the first thing to be affected is the standardized products sector?

Self-service checkouts have taken a huge chunk out of the standard product category that cashiers use.

With the emergence of technologies like Copilot and Claude Code, many junior programmers who write basic CRUD operations have had their workload significantly reduced.

In terms of graphic design, once Midjourney is launched, the prices for junior graphic designers who produce images in bulk are drastically reduced.

Who can you reason with about this?

This is something to be aware of. I'm not saying these positions will disappear tomorrow; that's not what I mean.

What I want to say is that AI has pushed the ceiling of standardized products down even further.

The biggest problem with standardized products is not the effort involved, but the lack of premium pricing.

If you produce a standardized product, you don't have the power to set your own prices.

Because there are too many alternatives.

When supply exceeds demand, the price is determined by the buyer.

This is common sense, and it's a rather cruel kind of common sense.

This division method is also particularly evident when recruiting.

Imagine you're interviewing for a content creation position, and you have two candidates whose resumes look very similar. They both have formal academic backgrounds, know how to write content, and have experience with accounts.

But when you talk to them, one of them only talks about "how many articles I've written" and "how many views I've had," while the other casually mentions why a topic can go viral, what kind of emotions are behind it, and when to publish it for the best traffic.

Guess who I want.

I want the second one, even if it's not as beautifully written as the first.

Because the first one is a standard product.

He could be replaced by a hundred people who are similar to him.

Secondly, he has already begun to subtly develop a second skill: an understanding of human nature.

What really got me off guard was that I suddenly realized that when I'm choosing people, I'm never choosing standard products; I'm betting on which person will be able to create something that others can't.

So, I understand the fear that a father is afraid his child will become a spare part.

What should we do then?

Is the life of an ordinary person just that of a cog in a machine that can be replaced at any time?

The good news is, no.

I truly believe that this path is much wider and easier than people think.

If you simply add one more skill to your existing craft, even just one, and combine it with your basic skills, you will no longer be a standard product.

You've become the ultimate trump card.

This isn't just empty platitudes; let me break it down and explain why.

Did you notice that 1 plus 1 here does not equal 2?

People who can write code are everywhere.

There are plenty of people who understand operations.

But someone who can both write code and understand operations is extremely rare in the market.

Scarcity is the source of premiums.

What they created was not simply a combination of two separate parts, "code" and "operations," but rather something new, something that no single person could provide.

The code he writes inherently knows which growth goal it should serve.

His operations background gives him a natural understanding of which features are technically feasible and which are just wishful thinking.

Companies cannot treat this kind of person with the logic of "replacing a screw".

Because we couldn't find a second one that was exactly the same.

So, the idea of ​​skill stacking, in the end, isn't about making you work harder to be a standard product, but about letting you jump out of that standard product pool altogether.

Following this, I'll list a few combinations I've actually seen around me, and I think each one is quite ingenious.

A programmer who understands operations.

I have a friend who is this kind of person.

He may not be the most technically gifted, but he has a product mind and a keen sense for growth. The boss can immediately tell which direction his work is heading in to generate profits.

This kind of person can't compete with purely technical people in terms of salary, but he'll easily beat most people in a combined technical and business role.

Operations that understand aesthetics.

Modern operations are no longer something that can be accomplished simply by posting on social media.

An operations manager who can do layout, color adjustment, shooting, and editing is not valued at all in the eyes of a boss, compared to an operations manager who can only write copy .

When aesthetics are combined with operations, the premium can be ridiculously high.

A graphic designer who understands sales.

I used to think that graphic designers just took on requirements and created images.

Later, I met a friend who worked in e-commerce. He knew how to sell goods, so he knew that every picture he posted had to push users to click.

He wasn't designing; he was designing to close the deal.

This level of understanding cannot be provided by purely graphic designers.

A technician who speaks a foreign language.

Sounds unremarkable, right?

But do you know how popular overseas work is right now? Blue-collar workers who can speak a foreign language and are good at manual labor can earn several times more than their counterparts in China on construction sites in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

Language combined with skills directly transported people to a different market.

Various working professionals who are proficient in using AI.

I have to single this out because it's the most explosive and also the most relevant to what I do.

I work in the AI ​​field, so I'm all too aware of the changes that have occurred this year.

An administrator who can automate repetitive tasks using Claude Code and an administrator who does it all manually can produce outputs several times greater.

An operations professional who knows how to use Deepersearch for industry analysis is simply not on the same level as someone who relies on search engines.

AI isn't here to replace you; it's here to give a winning hand to those who are willing to learn it.

If you continue to treat it as a threat, then someone else might just take that card.

Each combination, taken individually, is not particularly groundbreaking, but when stacked together, they form a moat that no one else can replace.

Like what I'm doing today.

I had our team crawl our own content data from across the internet, store it in Lark Multidimensional Tables, and then use AI to perform direct analysis.

In the past, this kind of work would have required finding a data analyst who knew Python and an operations person who knew how to interpret data, and the two of them would work on it for three days.

Now, an ordinary colleague who knows a bit about spreadsheets and AI can finish it in an afternoon.

You see, this concept of layering isn't some distant idea; it happens every day in real work.

Speaking of this, I'm reminded of a group of friends I know who work in food- related social media.

Many of them earn millions a year.

Do you think they're exceptionally good cooks?

No.

I've observed them carefully, and most of them, in essence, are photographers who can cook.

Some of them used to be photographers, but later felt that just photographing others wasn't interesting, so they started cooking and photographing themselves, and ended up becoming famous.

Some of them come from a post-production background and are experts in composition and lighting; cooking is just a vehicle for them.

You see, photographers are a standardized product, and cooking skills are also a standardized product if you only consider them as everyday skills. But if a photographer can cook and adds a touch of relaxation in front of the camera, this combination becomes a non-standardized product that can earn millions a year.

Sometimes I think that the person filming the video is probably just an ordinary young man who graduated from a second-tier university, setting up a reflector in his rented room, complaining that he didn't capture the moment of the bursting liquid well for the 18th time, while also wondering if he can increase his data usage a little more this month.

He never thought that his cooking skills would be enough to make a living, but by combining two skills, he found a wider path in life.

This kind of story is more effective than any inspirational quote.

So, what kind of person truly qualifies as a non-standard product?

Craftsman, business manager, senior salesperson, senior engineer, product manager, senior programmer, creative director, original designer, senior accountant, operations director.

What these people have in common is that they are irreplaceable in their respective fields.

They didn't rely on a single skill, but on long-term dedication to digging a deep and wide moat.

But to be honest, this path is difficult.

It's very difficult.

It takes time, luck, dedication to a single thing, and often a bit of talent.

Most people, including myself, would find it difficult to reach that position by relying solely on this one path.

I'm sure some friends will argue that it's wrong for me to focus on doing one thing to the extreme.

Row.

Of course.

But think about it, how many years have passed behind that small group of people who have achieved the highest level of excellence?

Most people don't have the conditions or the luck to force their way onto that path; they'll likely exhaust themselves and still not reach their goal.

So I thought, ordinary people shouldn't just focus on the end result of non-standard products and start rolling them out.

That road is too steep.

Let's take the easier path, the second type I mentioned earlier: skill stacking.

I have to tell you something from the bottom of my heart: skill accumulation isn't something you can achieve just by lying down.

It wants you to actually learn that second subject.

You can't think you know it just by watching a couple of short videos. You have to get involved, use it, and hone your skills in real-world situations.

Like myself, I was incredibly clumsy at the beginning of my years of creating AI content.

When the new tool came out, I was completely bewildered. I stared blankly at the interface, thinking, "What the hell is this now?"

But then I discovered something: people who are willing to spend a little more time exploring new things are completely different from those who stay in the same place after six months or a year.

It might be a bit clumsy at first, and take longer than doing it by hand.

But after a few weeks of consistent practice, you'll find that you're saving more and more time.

I have the authority to speak on this, because I'm the one who's been actively involved in the process.

Let's go back to that friend from the very beginning.

What he worries about is that the children will become like spare parts.

What I want to tell him is, don't just be anxious.

Instead of worrying about your child becoming a standardized product, you should let him understand one thing early on: what is truly valuable in this world is not that you only have one skill that millions of people know, but that you can combine several skills together.

Of course, I must admit that I don't have children myself, and what I've said above is more of an opinion I've pieced together from my observations over the years.

It may not be correct, but I think it's worth considering.

As I write this, I suddenly think of Adam Smith.

That's the author of "The Wealth of Nations".

He proposed something over two hundred years ago: the division of labor.

He said that by breaking down the production of a single needle into more than a dozen processes, with each person handling only one process, efficiency can be increased several hundred times.

Later, Ford implemented an assembly line, breaking down the production of a car into thousands of steps, with each worker spending their entire career tightening the same type of screw.

The efficiency was absurdly high, but it also turned people into mere cogs in a machine.

Smith planted the seed of division of labor, and Ford grew it into a forest.

The industrial age, based on this logic, turned people into cogs in the machine of the production process.

The fewer skills you have and the more specialized you are, the easier it is for you to be replaced, because the replacement cost is low.

But look now, AI has taken this logic a step further.

It is itself a super division of labor machine, taking on the work of standard products faster and faster.

So how can ordinary people fight against this trend?

Smith didn't provide an answer, and neither did Ford.

But I think that skill stacking is a card that ordinary people can hold onto in the face of this huge machine.

The more you stack up, the less you resemble a cog in a machine; the more you resemble someone who can't be copied by anyone.

What a great era, my friends.

In conclusion, I only want to say one thing.

Don't be afraid that you are a cog in the machine right now.

Go, learn another skill.

That card is in your own hand.

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