Market efficiency follows a lot of the same laws as evolution, and I think the author identifies the same fallacy many do about evolution: that there is some im

Market efficiency follows a lot of the same laws as evolution, and I think the author identifies the same fallacy many do about evolution: that there is some implied natural progression to perfection or negentropy. You don't need to be perfectly efficient to survive; you don't even need to be the most efficient. You just need to be efficient enough in your niche to make it another day. As environments/markets change, the measure for efficiency does as well. Adapt or die. The problem with build vs buy in general is that evaluating software is hard and there are a ton of variables whose values are often only clear in hindsight. Not only does the thing have to work, it has to work in a way that will scale with how you use it. Also, when comparing it to build, you have to know whether you have the right expertise (and interest) in-house to do what you want. There's also straight up timing considerations. There's really no formula to this, but at the end of the day you have to acknowledge that there's always going to be a slight misalignment of incentives between you and your vendor. You need a working product; the vendor wants your money. People want to believe these end up being the same thing, but especially for startups that aren't thinking past their next sales cycle this simply isn't true.