Reminded of a past conversation ...
X: We're going to spend $1bn on this effort.
Me: I can deliver the same result for $20m.
X: How?
Me: pay me $20m to sit on a beach drinking and in five years I'll phone you up to say "we failed".
... 5 years later
X: I wish we paid you $20m.
Simon Wardley
156.3K posts
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I like ducks, they're fowl but not through choice.
Born 321 ppm CO₂.
swardleymaps.com ... the official home of Wardley Mapping
- X : One of our customers wants a new feature in our product. Me : Sounds good. Add it to the backlog. X : No other customer seems to want this. It's unique to them. Me : Is it a generally useful feature that others might want? X : I doubt it Me : Then super low priority.
- Everything you need to know about Knowledge and Expertise in one handy graph
- The number one rule on zoom is ... you're an invited guest into someone else's home. If the kids invade then - they absolutely have the right to. It's their home as well. You can't import corporate "norms" into someone else's home. Learn to adapt.
- X : I know you says it's a commodity but we've decided to custom build this software. It creates a better brand experience. Me : Do you know how much that is costing you? X : It's just engineering time. Me : Oh god ...
- In the old days, this is how I use to organise ... by silos based around aptitude e.g. skillsets such as engineering and finance. There was always fight between silos and even within silos ...
- X : Do you have any thoughts on climate change. Me : La La La X : You don't agree with it? Me : Quite the opposite. I worked in the industry in the 1990s when we had a chance. X : What should we do? Me : Apologise to your kids. Beg forgiveness from grandkids. X : Is that it?
- X : What is web 3.0? Me : A set of worthwhile experiments being tightly coupled to specific forms of crypto for reasons of greed leading to a dystopian society of excessive control and inequality through decentralisation and "choice" that most will be excluded from.
- X : Any chance we can meet for coffee? Me : Virtual or in person? X : In person. Me : Whereabouts? X : I'll be in London next month. Me : Ok, A coffee shop in London Hythe. X : Where's that. Me : About 70 miles away. X : Something a bit more local? Me : Hythe is local ... to me.
- X : You seem negative about ChatGPT and its impact. Me : Quite the opposite. ChatGPT is not a thinking machine but it's a very good stochastic parrot. That has huge potential. X : Such as? Me : Management consultants, executives, thought leaders, marketing, lobbyists etc etc.
- X : Can you explain what is serverless? Me : The definition I use? Serverless is an event driven, utility based, stateless, code execution environment.
- X : Did you see "Why we're leaving the cloud" - world.hey.com/dhh/why-we-re-… Me : Nope. X : And? Me : Why are you talking infrastructure clouds to me? This is 2022. You should have migrated to severless years ago. I'm not interested in niche edge cases.




