cosmic farmland
cambrian explosion
& fractals
two analogies for where we are
beat 1 — frame
i own my understanding by chasing analogies.
- reason about them. see what fits. see where they break.
- today: two lenses for our industry.
- stretch? yeah. come along.
- tell me i'm full of shit. then we learn together.
beat 2
cambrian explosion
~540M years ago. body plans explode.
what happened
- sudden burst. not gradual.
- environment shifted. variety exploded.
- most major body plans appear in a blink.
three ideas worth borrowing
unpredictable
we don't know what wins. nobody did then either.
combinations
remix > invention. recombination compounds.
many bets
asymmetric upside. most die. a few define the era.
beat 3 — applied
what this asks of us
- environment just shifted. again.
- can't predict winners. stop converging early.
- breadth > precision. portfolio posture.
- cheap bets. fast kills.
metaphor bends: our bets cost attention, budget, trust. nature's are free.
beat 4
fractals
repeating pattern at different scales.
zoom in, zoom out. same shape.
- coastlines. trees. lungs. rivers.
- see the shape once → recognize it everywhere.
beat 5 — three scales
same shape, widening circles
feedback loops (tight)
repl → test → pr → release → postmortem. try · observe · adjust.
time (decades)
mainframe → pc → web → mobile → ai. booch: golden age. we've been here.
people (widening)
story · epic · feature · initiative · team · org. same dance.
implication
- practices that work at one scale likely work at others.
- failures at one scale forecast failures at the others.
- fix the shape. scale follows.
beat 6. close.
let it burn.
we already made this mistake once.
- us forest service, early 1900s. fight every fire.
- decades of suppression. fuel stacks up.
- small fires stop happening. catastrophic ones arrive.
- nature was already running a process. we overrode it.
same pattern in our work.
- we suppress. keep projects alive past usefulness.
- can't say no. can't kill. can't sunset.
- fuel stacks up. cognitive load. maintenance. drag.
- the catastrophic fire is the reorg, the layoff, the collapse.
intellectual honesty.
look at what's there. admit what should burn. let it.
cambrian needs extinction. winners only compound if losers get out of the way.
same shape, every scale.
project.
sunset the service.
intellectual honesty,
or the fire picks for you.
tell me where this breaks.
q&a.