Jorge Arango Blog

We all work within intractably large and complex systems. How much agency do we really have? This was the question Harry and I explored on episode 40 of the Traction Heroes podcast. Harry read a passage from Eric Ries’s new book, Incorruptible (which I haven’t read.) It starts by citing John Steinbeck’s story of depression-era farmers dealing with bank officers who’ve been rendered impersonal as agents of a large organization.

The Kinetic Council invited me to join a panel with Abby Covert, Jessica Talisman, and Larry Swanson to discuss the evolving role of information architecture in a world where AI exists. Things got salty! 🧂

Forty years ago, computer scientist Fred Brooks published a paper called No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accident in Software Engineering. As its title implies, the paper argues there are no technological shortcuts to making software radically easier, simpler, or more reliable. You may think AI is the ultimate silver bullet. It isn’t. Moore’s law was in full force in 1986. Hardware was getting more powerful, faster, and cheaper. Surely, some technology would come along to do the same for software.

AI lets us prototype faster than ever before. That’s great, as long as you remember there’s underlying work to be done. Specifically, production systems require structural underpinnings “screen-level” prototypes often miss. This means that (ironically) prematurely-rich prototypes can impede traction. So I wanted to discuss these issues with Harry. I kicked things off with a reading from Stewart Brand’s The Clock of the Long Now: In recent years a few scientists (such as R. V. O’Neill and C. S.

Complex systems evolve from simpler systems. The ones that thrive do so because they’ve adapted to real-world conditions — and not because they were designed to address all possibilities. In systems thinking, this principle was best articulated by John Gall: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system.

Charles Koch is on a mission to foster more principled behavior in the world. He’s written several books on principle-based management, and co-authored this one — the first I’ve read — with his son Chase. The goal: help businesses, societies, and individuals thrive by adopting a principle-based mindset. The key distinction is between management through principles and top-down management by rules. The latter is impracticable because managers aren’t omniscient.

Avoiding catastrophic failure is essential for gaining traction — and many so-called accidents can be prevented with a bit of forethought. This idea was at the core of episode 38 of Traction Heroes. Harry kicked it off with a short reading from Alan Levar’s There Are No Accidents, Only Collisions. Here’s a subset: It’s stunning how often simple safety checks were not carried out on tractor-trailers that subsequently crashed. Things that could have been fixed easily.

In the third of our Open-Ended Sessions, Greg and I discussed how AI is changing how product and design work are done. In particular, we’re tracking the shift from feature- and screen-level work to more strategic and human-centered system design. Lots of orgs are choosing to deploy AI as a means to do more of the same, only faster and cheaper. But AI can also be used to unlock new possibilities by augmenting (rather than replacing) humans.

Many teams are being measured for the wrong things: tokens used, agents deployed, etc. Their orgs have focused on tech adoption rather than value creation. It’s a mistake. I wanted to discuss this with Harry in our most recent podcast, so I read a passage from one of my favorite books, James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State. To my surprise, he’d read it too.

Earlier this year, I talked with a newly-minted theology MA about the relationship between AI and spirituality. I suggested Pope Leo XIV might have something to say. With the publication of the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, he’s said it. The Pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, led the Church during the second half of the 19th century. It was a time of social unrest triggered by technological changes: the Industrial Revolution precipitated the exploitation of workers and its counteraction in Marxism.