Sublime

Livingston: What is your favorite bit of advice you'd give to a technical person who wanted to start a startup? Schachter: Reduce. Do as little as possible to get what you have to get done. Do less of it; get it done. If you've got two things that you want to put together, take away until they go together. Don't add another thing. Because you can u

We are accustomed, largely by scientific practice, to taking things apart, separating them into their component attributes, fixing them for study, and piece by piece reducing their collective agency until they have none at all.

There is a natural tendency for people in such staff functions, often with the best of intentions, to prove their worth by finding ways to “add value”, devising rules and procedures, building up expertise, finding new problems to solve. Ultimately, they concentrate power and decision-making away from the frontline. People there feel disempowered: t

another way in which reductionism misrepresents the structure of scientific knowledge. Not only does it assume that explanation always consists of analysing a system into smaller, simpler systems, it also assumes that all explanation is of later events in terms of earlier events; in other words, that the only way of explaining something is to state

Can we simplify complexity, turn products into assets, subdivide resources, or minimize information costs—and perfect yesterday’s imperfections?”