I believe people are mis-framing the tech debt debate or at least missing part of it. Tech debt has to be managed and triaged, this is true. Tech debt slows do

I believe people are mis-framing the tech debt debate or at least missing part of it. Tech debt has to be managed and triaged, this is true. Tech debt slows down product development and degrades stability, also true. But tech debt is also a talent retaining and hiring tool. No one enjoys to work on a project that gets in your way for reasons that can be resolved. You need to pay down tech debt when people ask in a reasonable fashion otherwise, simply put, they'll leave.