Internal competition can be ok if the cost is low. For example, having multiple ‘two pizza’ teams working on the same problem domain can reduce risk and help ex

Internal competition can be ok if the cost is low. For example, having multiple ‘two pizza’ teams working on the same problem domain can reduce risk and help explore the solution space more quickly - multiple paths can be explored in parallel. Knowledge can be shared or teams merged when at least one approach is found to be successful. The problem in the article was that the competing silos were very large and expensive. And it sounds like a tribal atmosphere, where the effort of the competing silo was derided. That seems orthogonal to competition: competition can be friendly with the right framing from management.