Devoting 40 Years to the Three Kingdoms, the Transformation of Future Talent Education in the AI Era Starting from Ganghwado

Kim Gap-yong, the representative met at a café in Ganghwa-gun, Incheon, introduces himself this way: "I'm a man obsessed with the Three Kingdoms." It was not merely an interest or hobby. It was a sincere confession of a person who has accumulated Three Kingdoms-related books, artifacts, rare items, and exhibition contents over 40 years. While most people remember the Three Kingdoms as merely "stories of heroes," Kim Gap-yong saw within it a vast relational network of finding talent in uncertain environments, creating alliances, and sustaining organizations. His collection was not a simple hobby, but an accumulation of knowledge seeking timeless principles of humans and organizations, power and survival.

As we enter the AI era, this accumulation takes on new meaning. The Three Kingdoms is no longer a story of the past, but a living case study of problems that modern enterprises and individuals must solve. Why was Zhuge Liang the greatest individual yet failed to create a repeatable organization? How did Cao Cao compose talented individuals with diverse strengths as a portfolio? The moment these questions directly connect to today's corporate talent strategies and organizational design, the Three Kingdoms transcends mere classical literature to become a text for future talent education.

The Doewon Gyeolui Café on Ganghwado is not merely a café. It is a space for cultural experience that materializes 40 years of collection into physical form. This space, with Three Kingdoms-related books and artifacts on display, provides visitors the opportunity to directly see and feel the stories from books. The moment the Three Kingdoms, which existed only in documents and theory, comes alive through people's five senses, history is no longer the past but transforms into educational content for the present.

* Designed as a cultural space to directly experience the characters, events, books, and artifacts of the Three Kingdoms
* Expands beyond simple exhibition to ontology thinking education that understands relationships and structures
* Organically combines Ganghwado's historical background (connection with the Doewon Gyeolui historical anecdote) and content

This café contains another concern of Kim Gap-yong. The realization that talent is not someone who possesses much knowledge, but someone who discovers problems in the field and creates actual results by connecting people and data. Then how should such talent be cultivated? The answer begins from the Three Kingdoms as a "massive organizational database."

When reading the Three Kingdoms traditionally, we evaluate Liubei's benevolence, Cao Cao's decisiveness, Zhuge Liang's strategy, and Guan Yu's loyalty individually. However, reading it again from the perspective of talent in the AI era reveals a completely different landscape. What matters is not the excellence of individual characters, but who forms alliances with whom and for what purpose, how resources are deployed, which regions become strategic strongholds, and who holds legitimacy—these are matters of relationships and structure.

* Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Strategy: connecting terrain, forces, talent, legitimacy, alliances, and time into one long-term strategy
* Luo Su's relationship translation: redefining enemies and allies not as fixed attributes but as relationships of objectives and circumstances
* Cao Cao's talent portfolio: not seeking one type of talent but constructing a combination of talented individuals with different strengths

This perspective fundamentally changes how modern enterprises and individuals approach problem-solving. If we view problems only through the lens of "problem-solving," we become dependent only on individual capability. However, if we view problems as a "network of relationships," we can design organizations that function even without a single genius. This is precisely ontology thinking, and the strategies of the Three Kingdoms were already operating from this perspective.

Zhuge Liang was the apex of individual-level FDE, or "Forward Deployed Engineer." He discovered problems and was responsible for connecting strategy, diplomacy, administration, and logistics through to results. However, his competence did not become the organization's system. Excessive concentration caused judgment and execution to fall to one person, successors lacked opportunities to experience actual responsibility, and because judgment standards and know-how were not structured, his death immediately became a void in the organization.

This poses a fundamental question to modern enterprises. In the AI era, change occurs at even faster speeds. The essential task is to move from "organizations seeking Zhuge Liang" to "organizations developing Zhuge Liang," and further to "organizations that function without Zhuge Liang." To achieve this, we must convert individuals' tacit knowledge into explicit organizational assets.

* Stage 1: Problem Discovery and Definition — Converting vague field constraints into structured problems
* Stage 2: Relationship Translation — Connecting the different languages of operations and technology, management and practitioners
* Stage 3: Experiment Execution — Rapidly validating value through small MVPs
* Stage 4: Learning Institutionalization — Leaving outcomes and failures as standards usable by the next person

When 40 years of accumulation met the YouTube medium, it gained new life. Samminam TV, meaning "Men Mad about the Three Kingdoms," is not merely a Three Kingdoms commentary channel. With Kim Gap-yong's depth of knowledge about the Three Kingdoms combined with Shim Jae-woo's interpretation framework of the AI era, the Three Kingdoms transforms into a living case study explaining future talent and organizational design.

In this channel, Zhuge Liang is no longer a hero but is reinterpreted as "the greatest FDE who failed to create an FDE organization." Cao Cao becomes "an outstanding talent evaluator," Luo Su a "relationship translator," and Deng Ai a "field experiment-type problem solver." It specifically shows how historical figures apply to organizational challenges of the AI era.

* Translating the Three Kingdoms as a 'massive organizational database' into modern business problems
* Reinterpreting evaluation beyond individuals to the perspective of relationships, structures, and systems
* Expanding into an integrated content platform connecting publishing, YouTube, education, and exhibition

Ontology thinking is a way of seeing "what connects to what and why." By structuring people, events, resources, objectives, rules, actions, and relationships, people and AI can see the same world and make judgments by the same standards. The characters of the Three Kingdoms were already deploying strategies with this ontological thinking.

As AI becomes ubiquitous, human competitiveness shifts from "tool usage" to "field change." Future talent is a person who bundles five competencies into one. First, problem definition capability to accurately define important problems. Second, field penetration capability to discover context and constraints beyond documents. Third, relationship translation capability to connect the languages of operations, technology, and management. Fourth, experiment execution capability to prove value through small MVPs. Fifth, learning institutionalization capability to accumulate experiences as standards and assets. These five competencies are not a single expertise but a combinatorial ability that connects expertise to produce results.

* Problem definition capability: How Zhuge Liang diagnosed the weaknesses of Liubei's forces and redefined Heaven's structure through the Longzhong Strategy
* Field penetration capability: Deng Ai's ability in field experimentation that found seemingly impossible paths in late Shu
* Relationship translation capability: Luo Su's diplomatic ability to translate the different interests of Wu and Shu into the language of alliance

Kim Gap-yong's 40-year collection and Samminam TV's content now transcend the form of simple YouTube videos or books. A publication containing the question "Why couldn't Zhuge Liang create an FDE organization?" enters the world, the Doewon Gyeolui Café on Ganghwado is restructured as an experiential space for this content, and each chapter can be converted into videos, lectures, diagnostic questions, and exhibition commentary.

This is not merely content diversification, but a process in which historical collection transforms into modern education and becomes the basis for organizational design in the AI era. This small movement starting from Ganghwado expands from the old question "How should we read the Three Kingdoms?" to the new question "What kind of talent should we develop and how in the AI era?"

* Multi-layered expansion from publishing → YouTube → diagnostic education programs → corporate workshops → exhibition and café experiences → knowledge platform
* Design of integrated learning experience rather than a single product
* Strengthening the role of offline base centered on the Doewon Gyeolui Café on Ganghwado

Q1: Can the Three Kingdoms and future talent in the AI era really be connected?

A: The Three Kingdoms is a massive organizational case study of finding talent in uncertain environments, creating alliances, deploying resources, and sustaining organizations. Today's corporate challenge of "what kind of person to hire and how to develop them amid rapid change" is precisely the same dimensional question as the Three Kingdoms era's approach to talent composition. Zhuge Liang's strategy, Cao Cao's talent portfolio, Luo Su's relationship translation, and Sima Yi's long-term design are all principles directly applicable to FDE-type talent and organizational design in the AI era.

Q2: Why can't individual excellence become organizational system?

A: As the example of Zhuge Liang demonstrates, when problem discovery, strategy, diplomacy, administration, logistics, and execution all concentrate in one person, his judgment standards and know-how are not structured. Successors follow decisions but lack experience of actual responsibility, and challenges and failures do not remain as organizational assets. Ultimately, the moment that person disappears, the organization's judgment capability also disappears. In the AI era, the pace of change is even faster, so converting an individual's tacit knowledge into explicit organizational assets becomes a condition for survival.

Q3: What specifically does ontology thinking mean?

A: Ontology is a way of thinking that sees "what connects to what and why." Rather than viewing people, events, resources, objectives, rules, actions, and relationships fragmentarily, it structures how they interact with each other. For example, Guan Yu can be redefined not as "talent with loyalty" but as "high-performance, high-risk talent who judges organizational interests and objectives independently." When relationships and context are structured in this way, people and AI can make judgments by the same standards.

Kim Gap-yong's 40-year accumulation, the Doewon Gyeolui Café on Ganghwado, and Samminam TV are not merely Three Kingdoms content. They are a modern organizational design project departing from the fundamental question that "unless individual excellence converts to repeatable organizational capability, genius becomes the organization's greatest risk." This movement starting from the Doewon Gyeolui Café located in Ganghwa-gun, Incheon, is expanding into an integrated platform connecting publishing, education, exhibition, and YouTube, and is reinterpreting the Three Kingdoms as a "massive organizational database" as a text for future talent education in the AI era.

In an era when AI generates answers, what is truly needed is "FDE-type talent who defines field problems and connects people, data, and tools to produce results." And we need an organization where such talent is repeatedly produced. The first step to solving this task is to structure one's tacit knowledge and to share ontology thinking so that the entire organization can make judgments by the same standards. This project initiated by Kim Gap-yong and Shim Jae-woo of the Three Kingdoms AI Talent Research Institute is a concrete example of that journey. For more detailed consultation, please contact 010-2397-5734 or jaiwshim@gmail.com.

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