3 ms·

Big fan of playing with new tech. In a safe environment where failure is an option. Don’t go betting the farm on shiny things.

• mmt 8y ago
  "Personally" (professionally), neither am I. This kind of conservatism was formed after decades of sysadmin/ops experience. However, having acquired a strong affinity for startups, I also accept that risk (even complete, betting-the-farm risk) is totally OK, so long as that risk is taken in an informed manner. Startups, especially early ones, are a risky proposition from the get-go, and VC money tends to amplify that. The market doesn't much punish a web startup that grew like crazy but lost some user-generated content by using some "NoSQL" database when it first came out. It does, however, punish the one that failed to grow by being too conservative. That's obviously a false dichotomy, but I believe that's essentially the perception that's created, partly by characterizing new technologies as dangerous because they're new and "shiny". Ultimately, I consider mine to be a service profession and an engineering one. As such, if I think a new tech is too undesirable, it's up to me to provide an alternative that actually addresses the original problems (without offloading the burden onto my users/customers).