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As a polymath, your linked post was hardly enlightening. Additionally, the repeated line "no single company can deal with that entire complexity" is misleading
by benbot 13y ago
As a polymath, your linked post was hardly enlightening.
Additionally, the repeated line "no single company can deal with that entire complexity" is misleading. I can provide examples of companies that deal extensively with most if not all aspects of each individual layer presented.
The truth, though, is that thinking about all the layers together can and likely will make most people dizzy. As for companies? I would propose that a hypothetical company, let's name them "IBM" for convenience, could theoretically deal with each and every layer presented, and I'd estimate they could do so successfully for 50 years or more.
- btilly 13y agoMy point in the linked post was to show for one common technology how no individual person can really understand it. At some point we have to switch from understanding to just using. That said, there is no company that does deal with each layer in all complexity. Even IBM outsources. But the reason does not have to do with it being too complex as much as too standardized. The economic theory of the firm says that firms divide when the internal stupidity of a large firm exceeds transaction costs between several. But as an area standardizes, stupidity remains unchanged and transaction costs reduce - meaning that you get more smaller firms. There is an excellent chart that I think I saw in The Innovator's Solution which shows the resulting fragmentation of the semi-conductor industry over the decades.