This reminded me of what Jeff Bezos told the founders of Basecamp: "Focus on the things that don't change". In software, the global implementation-specific know

This reminded me of what Jeff Bezos told the founders of Basecamp: "Focus on the things that don't change". In software, the global implementation-specific knowledge changes quickly, but the global first principles knowledge expands much more slowly. Implementation-specific knowledge is "crumbly"; it can't compound effectively over time because the foundational premises for its usage disappear. Investing in knowing first principles may pay off more in this regards because first principles actively build upon each other (compilers --> just-in-time compilation, distributed memory models | distributed systems, etc.)