alt Hacker NewsI have been advocating within my org to replace "fungible" with "flexible" or "generalist."
"Fungible" implies they are a commodity, easily swapped for someone else. In other words, they are so low-value that they are interchangeable.
"Flexible" or "generalist" instead connotes that they are so high-value that they can operate well in multiple domains, easily shifting to where they are needed most.
“Flexible” would work if Amazon prioritized moving people around when the priorities change instead of laying off and rehiring.
You can easily call the typical Japanese life-long employees as “flexible” or “generalist” but not an employee of a company with median tenure rate of 1-2 years. That’s fungible.