4 ms·

Nice write-up. Not really related but it seems Americans currently prefer Cowboys.

user_7832 2y ago
I think it also can relate to the “shoot from the hip first ask questions later” US style while say Europe is more of “let’s make a committee to make sure the plan covers everything”. One can be faster at the risk of doing things wrong, while the other is less likely to take a bad decision but will likely take much longer to do it. …or maybe I’m just paraphrasing what the article said, I’m not really sure.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago
  > while the other is less likely to take a bad decision That's not necessarily the case, actually. You will be slow so you may make outdated decisions and you will try to "cover everything" in advance, which means you may well cover the wrong things. "No plan survives contact with the enemy". A business case-in-point is Nokia vs Apple. Nokia was caught completely off-guard by the iPhone and they then spent years planning their response (down to the usual comprehensive technical design specs covering every details) while Apple was churning one new version of the iPhone almost every year. Perhaps a similar scenario is playing out with SpaceX vs Arianespace (Ariane 6 design started in ~2012 with first flight in 2024, "only" 12 years later).
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Right. The counterpoint would be, "moving fast and breaking things" can sometimes break the important things, destroying far more value than it can ever hope to deliver. A related observation is, you might be moving fast, but you're breaking other people's things. The slow approach might look like it's trying to "cover everything", but sometimes it's just trying to account for the things that could break, so that 1) they don't end up dumped on other people's heads as externalities, and 2) the total ROI is actually positive. Which model is more appropriate and to what degree, really depends on the context. Technology is often a good case for the "fast" model, but since this subthread is making this an US vs. Europe thing, it's only fair to point out that the "slow" model works better when the general public is on the receiving end of the business or political activities.
    - mytailorisrich 2y ago
      Of course the right balance must be struck. The situation is Europe is not really demonstrating that the "European/slow model" works "better"... At the moment what we're seeing is legacy systems and companies slowly falling behind and decaying everywhere with a glacial pace of change.
- ensocode 2y ago
  Thanks, interesting thought. I think this is > Systems optimize for consistency and long-term reliability which makes it more risk-proven but also inflexible. In IT business for me it seems a mixture of both is the royal road
- potato3732842 2y ago
  >while the other is less likely to take a bad decision but will likely take much longer to do it. Process is not free. The bad decision may well be to invest in the process rather than invest in cleaning up after the cowboys. It takes time, labor and money to run whatever process structure you're using. There are many, many cases where various processes grow in scope of things they cover that it reaches a point of absurdity and the cost is greater than the cost of just cleaning up after the cowboys when they screw up. But because the costs are diffuse, hard to quantify and efforts to quantify them are rife with places that less than honest people can inject subjective judgement processes are often allowed to grow in scope or cost until they are so massively huge that the absurdity is undeniable.
actionfromafar 2y ago
They prefer the wrecking crew (in cowboy hats) with bulldozers.
pyrale 2y ago
I wouldn’t say the current situation is about cowboys vs drones, though. There have been plenty of cowboy examples in the us admin in the past, like usds/18f. The current disrupters don’t care about improving the administration or delivering something. They’re civil servants like the Vikings were looking to improve monastic efficiency.
megadata 2y ago
Prefer an outlaw, masquerading as a cowboy but they see him as a drone.

I think it also can relate to the “shoot from the hip first ask questions later” US style while say Europe is more of “let’s make a committee to make sure the plan covers everything”. One can be faster at the risk of doing things wrong, while the other is less likely to take a bad decision but will likely take much longer to do it. …or maybe I’m just paraphrasing what the article said, I’m not really sure.

mytailorisrich 2y ago
> while the other is less likely to take a bad decision That's not necessarily the case, actually. You will be slow so you may make outdated decisions and you will try to "cover everything" in advance, which means you may well cover the wrong things. "No plan survives contact with the enemy". A business case-in-point is Nokia vs Apple. Nokia was caught completely off-guard by the iPhone and they then spent years planning their response (down to the usual comprehensive technical design specs covering every details) while Apple was churning one new version of the iPhone almost every year. Perhaps a similar scenario is playing out with SpaceX vs Arianespace (Ariane 6 design started in ~2012 with first flight in 2024, "only" 12 years later).
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Right. The counterpoint would be, "moving fast and breaking things" can sometimes break the important things, destroying far more value than it can ever hope to deliver. A related observation is, you might be moving fast, but you're breaking other people's things. The slow approach might look like it's trying to "cover everything", but sometimes it's just trying to account for the things that could break, so that 1) they don't end up dumped on other people's heads as externalities, and 2) the total ROI is actually positive. Which model is more appropriate and to what degree, really depends on the context. Technology is often a good case for the "fast" model, but since this subthread is making this an US vs. Europe thing, it's only fair to point out that the "slow" model works better when the general public is on the receiving end of the business or political activities.
  - mytailorisrich 2y ago
    Of course the right balance must be struck. The situation is Europe is not really demonstrating that the "European/slow model" works "better"... At the moment what we're seeing is legacy systems and companies slowly falling behind and decaying everywhere with a glacial pace of change.
ensocode 2y ago
Thanks, interesting thought. I think this is > Systems optimize for consistency and long-term reliability which makes it more risk-proven but also inflexible. In IT business for me it seems a mixture of both is the royal road
potato3732842 2y ago
>while the other is less likely to take a bad decision but will likely take much longer to do it. Process is not free. The bad decision may well be to invest in the process rather than invest in cleaning up after the cowboys. It takes time, labor and money to run whatever process structure you're using. There are many, many cases where various processes grow in scope of things they cover that it reaches a point of absurdity and the cost is greater than the cost of just cleaning up after the cowboys when they screw up. But because the costs are diffuse, hard to quantify and efforts to quantify them are rife with places that less than honest people can inject subjective judgement processes are often allowed to grow in scope or cost until they are so massively huge that the absurdity is undeniable.

actionfromafar 2y ago

They prefer the wrecking crew (in cowboy hats) with bulldozers.

pyrale 2y ago

I wouldn’t say the current situation is about cowboys vs drones, though. There have been plenty of cowboy examples in the us admin in the past, like usds/18f. The current disrupters don’t care about improving the administration or delivering something. They’re civil servants like the Vikings were looking to improve monastic efficiency.

megadata 2y ago

Prefer an outlaw, masquerading as a cowboy but they see him as a drone.