Chaos is a Ladder
concepts are very different from the incremental-versus-radical distinction that has characterized many studies of this problem. Second, the pace of technological progress can, and often does, outstrip what markets need. This means that the relevance and competitiveness of different technological approaches can change with respect to different mark
... See moreClayton M. Christensen • The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change)
Engineering organizations today have ballooned to huge numbers of people, but these huge engineering organizations don’t exactly have a reputation for high velocity output. Some of this is the result of what happens with products at scale: it is just fundamentally faster and easier to iterate, improve, or change a product with 100 users than it is ... See more
The magic of software; or, what makes a good engineer also makes a good engineering organization
Though the arc is new, the secular trends look like they’re pointed in the same direction — towards continued devolution and decentralization of power. Despite apparent (and mostly unsupported by empirical data) swings back towards hierarchy and centralization, we can expect that in the longer term, the secular trends will reassert themselves, lead... See more
Venkatesh Rao • The Modernity Machine
Working in technology means one thing above all else: chasing scale. There is a reason why much of the tech world is obsessed with growth. Free from physical constraints, digital systems can scale to an incomprehensible size. The appeal of conquering the engineering, design and business challenges of mega-scale is strong, the rewards immense. But u
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