open systems

The key to building complex systems is not designing complexity from the start. Instead, it’s about building simple systems, allowing them to fail, and iterating on those systems based on what works and what does not work.

Our bias is to always add more. More rules, more procedures, more code, more features, more stuff. Interdependencies proliferate, and gradually strangle us. Systems want to grow and grow, but without pruning, they collapse. Slowly, then spectacularly.

When a piece of trash drifts across the beach, it is our duty to pick it up so the next person can ... See more

Our bias is to always add more. More rules, more procedures, more code, more features, more stuff. Interdependencies proliferate, and gradually strangle us. Systems want to grow and grow, but without pruning, they collapse. Slowly, then spectacularly.

When a piece of trash drifts across the beach, it is our duty to pick it up so the next person can ... See more

The more effectively we can share ideas, and treat them as composable pieces that are meant to be built upon, and iterated, the faster we'll progress in our ideas.

In the real world, the systems we build are part of complex adaptive systems that encompass developers, users, and customers, as well as their environments and organizational contexts. This reality calls for a more dynamic, almost organic approach to architecture and design, one that allows you to learn as you go and adapt your software to ever-cha

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Start with an ambitious, high-potential idea, but challenging and full of ambiguities — the rough shape of a nascent great idea. It typically isn’t new, but solves many problems in a simpler, more intuitive way. It ignites people’s curiosity and self-motivation. At the end, it should seem “obvious” so that others want to copy, because there aren’t ... See more