re: #772 reine.de.tout

Well, I’m starting my own business, so I’ll get to hire only good people. Including my mother-in-law-to-be, I hope.

One of the reasons that I study WWII so much is that I feel the US Army in the ETO, at any rate, was a great example of a system whereby, even though it had huge flaws, by and large the best rose to the top. There were some inversions, some problems, but it was a hugely successful, vastly complex organization.

I also like Atul Gawande’s books a great deal, especially The Checklist Manifesto— if you haven’t read it, it’s a wonderful book about complexity.

I think that a new science is being born right now, just as efficiency studies was born in WWII. I think we’re starting to realize that systems that are overly complex are self-defeating in the end, and that reduction of complexity is a reduction of risk.