About Grant Varner’s Blog
Highly relevant for those working in tech. Written by Grant Varner, a Solution Engineer with Salesforce; previously a Sales Engineer with Oracle.
What to expect:
How to integrate AI with creativity to get better at work and life without sacrificing your humanity.
High signal essay posted every Thursday at 5am EST.
What I Believe
As of December 14, 2025
On AI
AI-generated content has an ugly downside: knowledge collapse. Today, AI systems are recursively dependent. Which means AI often trains on other AI. That’s a problem because AI never adds to the stock of human knowledge. It just synthesizes what already exists.
The ability to learn new technology is more important than knowing new technology today. AI’s made it possible for tech companies to shorten their release cycle, making it more important than ever to learn new technology fast.
On Writing
Individuals and humanity improve based on a steady increase of knowledge. We have a responsibility to contribute in some way to make our small part of the world better. In a 2021 interview, Hamish McKenzie, co-founder, and Chief Writing Officer of Substack told The Bit:
“What we’re setting out to do is restore the value of online writing and to trigger a renaissance with lots more writing than any time in history.”
Writing is the best way to crystallize your knowledge permanently.
Writing as an art form will not die because of AI - it will evolve. Back in 1840, Paul Delaroche, a French painter saw the first photograph. From that moment he declared “From today, painting is dead!” In reality, (1) Painting as an art for did not die. (2) Impressionism was birthed as a result.
On Attention
Focus is the most valuable skill in the 21st century. Focus is a force multiplier on your work output. But human attention spans are decreasing. The ability to have single minded focus on a task will set you apart.
Not all time is created equal. Condensed & focused effort maximizes your results. This applies to (1) Short term focus over the course of a day, i.e. time blocking. (2) Long term focus over the course of several months, i.e. single-minded focus on a project.
On Career
Soft skills like creativity, curiosity, and lifelong learning will be in high demand for the next decade. The 2025 Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum suggests that while hard technical skills are in demand, so are a growing number of soft skills.
AI, specifically LLMs, have elevated the bar for what’s possible - and what’s necessary to stay competitive in your career. To quote Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr:
“What was once considered ‘easy tasks’ will no longer exist; what was once considered ‘hard tasks’ will be the new easy, and what was once considered ‘impossible tasks’ will be the new hard. If you do not become an exceptional talent at what you do, you will face the need for a career change in a matter of months.”
Being on the bleeding edge of technology and creativity will take you far in a career in tech. Regarding AI, David Epstein, author of Range had this to say:
“The bigger the picture, the more unique the potential human contribution. Our greatest strength is the exact opposite of narrow specialization.”
Tech is evolving so fast that you need technically fluent people good at storytelling orally and in written text. The ability to communicate new technology will become high demand because AI models need quality writing to train on.
Acquiring specific knowledge will increase your market value. Specific knowledge is information that cannot be taught in school. It’s a unique type of expertise built up over time by pursuing your natural curiosities.
