Comment by sanderjd
4 days ago
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.
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.
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.
see my reply further down the thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48503075
> 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.
> 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.
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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.
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