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

Scott Hartley first heard the terms fuzzy and techie while studying political science at Stanford University. If you majored in humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you majored in computer or hard sciences, you were a techie. While Silicon Valley is generally considered a techie stronghold, the founders of companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, LinkedIn, PayPal, Stitch Fix, Reddit, and others are all fuzzies--in other words, people with backgrounds in the liberal arts.

In this brilliantly counterintuitive book, Hartley shatters assumptions about business and education today: learning to code is not enough. The soft skills--curiosity, communication, and collaboration, along with an understanding of psychology and societal ills--are central to why technology has value. Fuzzies are the instrumental stewards of robots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. They offer a human touch that is of equal if not greater importance in our technology-led world than what most techies can provide.

For anyone doubting whether a well-rounded liberal arts education is practical in today's world, Hartley's work will come as an inspiring revelation.