In effect, the increased ability to collect and analyze such troves of data raises the possibility that in the future we’ll be able to better understand what types of education the workers of the future most need, how companies can best recruit future star performers and how individuals can position themselves to benefit from shifts in what skills the modern economy most rewards.

There is a lot of work to be done to get to that point. But this early evidence suggests that success in the business world isn’t just about brainpower or climbing a linear path to the top, but about accumulating diverse skills and showing an ability to learn about fields outside one’s comfort zone.

“Work used to be much more hierarchical, and in many instances rote,” said Gary Pinkus, McKinsey & Company’s managing partner for North America. “You could build a nice career within any particular function by taking on more responsibility within that specialty. But if you look at most companies now, work has become incredibly cross-functional.”

Image George Kurian, chief of NetApp. Credit... David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Once upon a time, Mr. Pinkus said, an operations manager might be laser-focused on making a factory work efficiently. Now to be great at that job — and earn a promotion to vice president or beyond — that manager had better also understand how the factory’s inventory procedures tie in with the company’s sales and marketing strategy, and any tax laws affecting inventory management, while assuring the reliability of the supply chain.

The manager had better also be adept at using the technology that links all that information together.

Marc Andreessen, the prominent venture capitalist, has gone so far as to call this the “secret formula to becoming a C.E.O.” The most successful corporate leaders, he wrote, “are almost never the best product visionaries, or the best salespeople, or the best marketing people, or the best finance people, or even the best managers, but they are top 25 percent in some set of those skills, and then all of a sudden they’re qualified to actually run something important.”