W12 - Delivery Changes After Organizational Expansion and Antifragility

Last week an article in the internal community titled “Changes That Will Happen to China’s Internet Between 2025 and 2030” went viral externally. As organizations grow, their responsiveness slows, and I’ve personally felt that change over recent years.

Four years ago, when hiring was tightest, I could have eight product requests listed in my task tracker and juggle them through the pipeline. Delivery processes were lightweight, discretionary authority was high, and communication chains were short. By adjusting each request’s development, integration, and testing schedule I could respond flexibly. Mistakes happened in the rush and reviews were sparse, but most issues were manageable and minor — we’d hotfix and move on.

Today, a delivery environment that can run two requests in parallel is considered demanding. With larger organizations, stability and institutional knowledge become higher priorities. Adding controls, converging processes, and building mechanisms have been the dominant themes in recent years. I attended a release-plan review last week where the tone was essentially “under no circumstances can anything go wrong.” Many of these constraints applied to services at this scale have poor cost-effectiveness. Low-traffic services still make up the majority of deliveries, and when you tally the total costs, some measures aren’t worthwhile. I used to advocate “stability first” as a mantra — it was both a work requirement and learned from painful experience — but with broader perspectives now we need dialectical review. There are some improvement ideas: service tiering, removing control measures that didn’t meet expectations, and leveraging AI to improve efficiency.

I heard a fund manager describe strategies for profiting from risk in a VUCA environment; the design originally came from Antifragile. That book offers many practical perspectives that sharpen everyday decision-making. Many human-made policies, mechanisms, and regulations are actually drivers of fragility — complex mechanisms can trigger unforeseen chain reactions. The benefits of “man-made complexity” are small but visible, while the side effects can be severe yet hidden.