Long Term Skills
May 21st, 2026
I was chatting with Claude, and my friend J, the guy who's having a polygamous affair (ethical), about what long-term skills are most valuable to make money (and possibly, life).
There are of course skills and there are mindsets. I have focused a lot on mindset, but I think at the end of the day that just depends on temperament and life experience, you can't force someone to be hungry and want certain things. You can convince them, but something they want to do is difficult.
So here goes what are the most important skills:
- Communication
- Taste
- Judgement
- Execution
These are probably the most valuable skills anyone could have.
Communication
It's important to recognize that people can communicate differently and there are important pieces to picking up how to communicate.
Of course, communication skills are brought up very quickly in environments where communication is required.
Mentorship programs at schools, fundraising for startups or non-profits, or cold calling for agency firms. All of these are free to do and engage in easily, it's just that gap from wanting it to actually executing the practice. There are so many free ways to practice communication skills, it takes years and years of practice built up to engage in them.
Taste
Taste comes after years of exposure to product and domain. Taste is effectively that unspoken ruleset. It's hard to put a finger on why taste comes about, but it's the unconscious judgement on why things are good or why things are bad.
Taste gives you the palette to understand why to pursue what you want to pursue, and if what you're pursuing is worth your time.
Judgement
Judgement is when you already have something in mind, and need to take decisions in the process to get to the goal. IT's the ability to judge what the right course of action is.
Execution
Execution is the ability to actually get things done. Get shit done.
Summary
It's amazing how much I've realized that, well, how far I've changed since I was in high school. If you asked me what was important for me to be paid well, I'd have told you programming. Programming is probably one-tenth of what's actually important in my job. It's the ability to take new information and quickly synthesize it into good taste and judgement. That's hard to manufacture and teach, and I understand why schools expose students to so many different things. How else are you supposed to develop taste?