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If the business model is boring, you’ll need complex technology to compensate. If your business model is complex like in a lot of enterprise software, you shoul

If the business model is boring, you’ll need complex technology to compensate. If your business model is complex like in a lot of enterprise software, you should strive to keep the technology as simple as possible. Simple doesn’t mean to not use complex or cutting edge things IMO but to be conservative in using things that push the cognitive load of your collective team. A 10 person company probably doesn’t need a K8S cluster for a mobile app but I’d be surprised if there isn’t one for a 10k+ software company.

jspash 6y ago
"If the business model is boring, you’ll need complex technology to compensate." Could you elaborate on this? What is the complexity compensating for? Boredom of the developers?
- ansgri 6y ago
  I suppose the boring business model needs some secret sauce, i.e. advanced technology, to stay competitive -- since it's boring, many people are likely to do it, the margins are thin, you need to optimize.
- devonkim 6y ago
  Compensating for competitive factors both for customers and for investors to care that you're worth putting money into. If you don't have something that makes you special from your competitors, what's the point of you existing? That's just a small business like a mom & pop grocery store or a boutique web design agency (both of which are endangered species). If you don't have any competitors, then you'd better have something of value, correct? Or is one's company Theranos et al? In enterprise, the competitive factors can be things like relationships to certain vendors and this can supersede technology secret sauce and is as equally valuable as a trade secret. You get overly-complicated business models that become a house of cards like Enron or WeWork which make unsophisticated investors think they know what they're doing, and as engineers we are attracted to our own biases toward shiny new things that might solve all our headaches. But you're also right in that some technology companies basically hire developers to give them resume / vanity projects that don't necessarily help the business be competitive directly. However, that is another ball game that's into global brand territory which follows rules more of religions and politics than of capitalism.

jspash 6y ago

"If the business model is boring, you’ll need complex technology to compensate." Could you elaborate on this? What is the complexity compensating for? Boredom of the developers?

ansgri 6y ago
I suppose the boring business model needs some secret sauce, i.e. advanced technology, to stay competitive -- since it's boring, many people are likely to do it, the margins are thin, you need to optimize.
devonkim 6y ago
Compensating for competitive factors both for customers and for investors to care that you're worth putting money into. If you don't have something that makes you special from your competitors, what's the point of you existing? That's just a small business like a mom & pop grocery store or a boutique web design agency (both of which are endangered species). If you don't have any competitors, then you'd better have something of value, correct? Or is one's company Theranos et al? In enterprise, the competitive factors can be things like relationships to certain vendors and this can supersede technology secret sauce and is as equally valuable as a trade secret. You get overly-complicated business models that become a house of cards like Enron or WeWork which make unsophisticated investors think they know what they're doing, and as engineers we are attracted to our own biases toward shiny new things that might solve all our headaches. But you're also right in that some technology companies basically hire developers to give them resume / vanity projects that don't necessarily help the business be competitive directly. However, that is another ball game that's into global brand territory which follows rules more of religions and politics than of capitalism.