This morning, I read a fascinating Fast Company interview with Joichi Ito, the new head of the MIT Media Lab, a think tank that has long sought to connect problems of society to technology solutions and business success. Ultimately, it seeks to be a hybrid enclave. Without the right leadership, however, it could become a place that is so stimulated by novelty that it loses sight of the real world.

That's why Ito is such an ideal leader for the organization. The article describes him as a "Drop-out VC," but I would apply a different label: hybrid thinker. Crucially, he effectively answers a critical question: just how deep should you go in any one field if you want to develop hybridity?

Joichi's history is prototypical: physics, computer science, DJ, Hollywood producer, venture capitalist, scuba instructor. It's also clear, more importantly, that he isn't just an eclectic guy. He consciously tries to mash his experiences together in order to make something new, and he has a great bar for how much he needs to learn to incorporate a new field into his experience:

"It’s not about being a generalist. I like to go deep in a lot of things, but when I do, I like to go deep enough to contribute. If I like scuba, I become an instructor. If I like music, I become a disc jockey. If I like movies, I want to work on a movie set. I don’t become a world class academic in that field, but I get good enough to understand the nuances. And then, because I have experience in so many fields, it gives me a pattern that other people don’t have."

"Deep enough to contribute." That's it exactly. It's one thing to admire well-designed products. It's another to learn enough to be capable of making one yourself. Just as it's one thing to tag along on an anthropological study and it's another to be capable of creating and conducting one. Unless you go deep enough to contribute, you are, ultimately, a dilettante. That might make you a fun conversationalist, but it won't actually make you more hybrid.