Library

How do you succesfully achieve large-scale ventures? According to Flyvbjerg, you make them modular (instead of turning each part into a bespoke subproject) and you go fast. Modularity enables learning curves (each module you roll out makes you better at rolling out the next), allows you to experiment cheaply on some of the modules (which in turn feeds back as learning), and delivers value incrementally. Speed allows you to avoid variance: Every year your project goes on is further from the initial conditions under which you planned it and deemed it worthwhile, which increases risks. The empirical argument is about as thin as you’d expect of a business paper, but I like the framework and think there’s a lot to learn from it.

I did not “get” biology in school either — I did well enough, but it felt like memorization and I never really cared about it. I discovered it for real in my 20s, after falling down a bit of a rabbit hole via a hacker type’s youtube video on a DIY genetic engineering project, and this incredible essay really captured my feelings about the subject once things started clicking into place and I grokked its significance.