Asymmetrical risk/reward profiles breed hyper-conservative behavior. Legacy support and "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitudes have negative externalities.

Asymmetrical risk/reward profiles breed hyper-conservative behavior. Legacy support and "if it ain't broke don't fix it" attitudes have negative externalities. A good case study is the NASA Space Shuttle program and how expensive it was especially when compared to SpaceX. Not to downplay the sheer achievements of NASA by any means, plenty of people there are much smarter than I am. The solution isn't just "ignore the risk", you have to do something fundamentally different (with strong conviction, investment, and leadership) in order to restore symmetry to the risk-reward profile, such as a truly best-in-class testing infrastructure. Operating your business as a meritocracy doesn't hurt either (although I suspect pure meritocracies to be impossible/unfeasible to implement).