Geosolv CEO John Schroeder on Expertise in an AI World: "I Own a Hammer Too. That Doesn’t Make Me a Carpenter."
I recently had a construction project done at my house. I found myself watching the guys work probably more than I should have. Not because I was checking up on them, but because it was impressive watching people who really knew what they were doing. I own a hammer. I own a saw. I have paintbrushes. I can do a little wiring. I have fixed things around the house. I can watch a YouTube video with the best of them. But watching these guys move through the project was different. They were fast, but it wasn’t really the speed that caught my attention. It was how they used their tools.
They knew exactly what tool they needed. They knew when they needed it. They knew when something didn’t look right. They could look at a problem, think about it for about 30 seconds, grab a tool, and solve it. What took them a few days probably would have taken me a few weeks. And let’s be honest, somewhere around week two I probably would have been calling one of them to come fix what I screwed up. It got me thinking about something I have said for years.
With YouTube, you can learn how to do almost anything. Need to change a garbage disposal? YouTube. Want to replace your brakes? YouTube. Need to figure out some ridiculous Excel formulas? Somebody has made a 14-minute video explaining it. Now add AI to that.
Knowledge is at our fingertips like it has never been before. I can ask AI how to frame a wall. I can watch a carpenter do it on YouTube. I can go to Home Depot and buy the exact same tools the professional uses. But I still wouldn’t hire me to frame your house.
That’s an interesting thing to think about.
Knowledge has never been easier to get. But I think expertise might be becoming rarer.
We talk a lot about tools in our industry. What software do you know? Have you used this platform? Do you know GIS? CAD? AI? Automation? And those are fair questions. The tools matter. But I’m starting to wonder if we put too much value on knowing the tool and not enough value on understanding what you’re actually trying to accomplish with it.
There is a big difference between knowing which buttons to push and understanding why you’re pushing them. The construction crew didn’t start with the tools. They started with the problem. They understood what needed to be built. They understood how everything fit together. They knew what could go wrong. They had seen similar problems before.
Then they picked up the tool.
I think that’s an important distinction, especially right now. AI is going to make all of us capable of doing things we couldn’t do before. Software keeps getting easier. Automation keeps getting better. Information that used to take years to accumulate can now be found in seconds.
That’s incredible. I’m all for it.
But access to knowledge isn’t the same thing as experience. And access to a tool isn’t the same thing as expertise. You can give someone the best GIS software in the world. That doesn’t mean they understand how a network should be designed. You can give someone AI. That doesn’t mean they know whether the answer it gave them makes sense.
You can give me a $500 saw.
Please don’t ask me to build your kitchen cabinets.
Maybe this changes how we should think about hiring people. Or choosing partners. Or even how we train the next generation of people coming into our industries. Because the tools are only going to get better. Knowledge is only going to become easier to access. So maybe knowing the tool isn’t going to be the differentiator we think it is.
Maybe the real value is no longer having access to answers—but in knowing which answers matter, which ones are wrong, and what to do when the situation doesn’t look like anything you were taught.
I used to think having all the world’s knowledge at our fingertips would allow anyone to complete the job. I’m starting to think it might be the opposite. Because when everyone can find an answer, the real skill becomes knowing what a good answer actually looks like.
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