I guess it depends on what "decisions" we are talking about. I took it to mean design decisions, in which case Security and Simplicity are generally orthogonal

I guess it depends on what "decisions" we are talking about. I took it to mean design decisions, in which case Security and Simplicity are generally orthogonal. Plain text passwords are a lot simpler and less secure than salted, hashed passwords. Using bcrypt to hash your passwords is a lot simpler and more secure than some home-grown, self-implemented hashing algorithm. Also as it says he is talking about priorities, if something is simpler and less secure then choose security. If something is simpler and more secure then hey double win.