202301250000, January 25, 2023

software has gotten harder to build in one very particular and important way: it’s gotten more complex.

I’ve tried to break up the explosion in complexity into the following categories:

• The complexity of rising standards
• The complexity of too many choices
• Complexity and technical decision making in the era of abundance
• The complexity of large teams and aging code bases
• Aspirational complexity

• I believe that we’re having this conversation at this exact moment because we’re at the tail end of a decade of cheap money. The relative ease of raising capital has both contributed to the trends that have brought us to this point of discontent, and allowed us to put off dealing with the challenges it created.