[sanderjd]

It's definitely that, which is very valuable, but it's also the optionality value additionally. You had the option to launch the thing, which you wouldn't have had if you had never worked on it at all. It's notoriously difficult to properly value optionality, but it definitely has value, and often a lot of value.

[dijksterhuis]

sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing".

we should just be straightforward, say "we built the wrong thing" and then ask how we built the right-er thing.

[sanderjd]

No, optionality very literally has value. If I buy an option to purchase some commodities at some price, and the market moves against me, I lose the price of the option. By your logic here, the thought should be "buying the option was wrong, because it didn't go my way and I lost the price of the option". But it's often the case that actually buying that option was a good move.

The kind of optionality I'm talking about in software projects is not so clean to account as the financial instrument, but it has real value in just the same way.

[dijksterhuis]

see my reply further down the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503075

[mpyne]

> sorry, but this just sounds like a rationalisation for "we built the wrong thing".

If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy.

That's the whole reason options have value. Having 3 shippable products ready to go when you can only effectively ship 1 puts the whole team in a much better position than choosing 1, focusing everyone on it, and hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit.

So yes, an engineer may work on something that doesn't ship. That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless, and that's not even counting the experience gained by the endeavor which may well pay off on the next round of products to ship.

[dijksterhuis]

> If it were so easy to decide what the right thing is to build before you build it then business would be easy.

It's not easy. That's why it's important to be straightforward and just move on without all the navel gazing.

> ... hoping you hit the lottery with product-market fit.

There's this thing called "research" where you talk to real people, instead of guessing.

> That doesn't retroactively make their effort worthless

No-one said building the wrong thing was worthless. Life is one continuous mistake.

---

we are saying mostly the same thing i'm pretty sure, especially in your other comment reply (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48498912). although i feel you're dressing it up a little too much for my liking. i prefer being a lot more plain and direct about it (and probably a bit arsey).

ruthlessness is an asset when it comes to we built the wrong thing. ruthlessness gets us moving on faster.

[mpyne]

> There's this thing called "research" where you talk to real people, instead of guessing.

Obviously you should talk to people.

But that doesn't lead to guarantees of product-market fit. People can describe their problems, but they usually can't describe the solution. If they already knew the solution they'd likely have already addressed the problem!

> ruthlessness is an asset when it comes to we built the wrong thing. ruthlessness gets us moving on faster.

Sure, I think we are sort of saying the same thing. I'm saying you should work on it even though it may be ruthlessly rejected later, potentially even without ever shipping.

It's part of the game and it's not worth crying over. The ruthless thing is to acknowledge the work you did, that it had value to whoever was paying you to do it, and then move on to the next thing.

[sanderjd]

I don't understand why you interpret "we should recognize that it's worth paying for optionality and sometimes we decide not to exercise the option and that's normal and fine" as naval gazing. I think it's the opposite, that feeling butt hurt about the projects you work on not shipping is what is naval gazing.

To me all your "I prefer being plain and direct" just sounds like someone who hasn't thought much about why building the wrong thing is not worthless, and why those continuous mistakes in life are worthwhile, and isn't really interested in thinking about things at more than the surface level.

It does seem like you aren't really disagreeing with us here. But you're just saying "don't make me think about why we agree about this!"

[dijksterhuis]

> It does seem like you aren't really disagreeing with us here.

I'm not.

> But you're just saying "don't make me think about why we agree about this!"

My position is that you're overcomplicating it with business doublespeak.

----

edit

> someone who hasn't thought much about why building the wrong thing is not worthless, and why those continuous mistakes in life are worthwhile, and isn't really interested in thinking about things at more than the surface level.

I have just spent the last two years writing over a thousand pages of very heavy introspective stuff about a bunch of stuff i've done, and things that have happened to me, over the last thirty years.

"surface level" is most definitely not the person you're speaking to.

[sanderjd]

Yes I understand that. The tendency of engineers to willfully refuse to understand what's going on in their businesses and scoff at the things they are refusing to understand by dismissing them as "overcomplicated" and "business doublespeak" is what my comment that started this thread was about.