Optionality pays when you do not need to be right — many cheap tries, each with a capped loss and an open upside.
This is why tinkering has beaten planning across most of the history of technology. The tinkerer does not need a correct theory, only a survivable failure rate.
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Typed edges. Anything below the line was authored on the other note and derived here.
supports →The new leverage is code and media — zero marginal cost of replication, works while you sleep, needs no one's permission.Explains why code and media pay the way they do. Their economics are an option: bounded cost to produce, unbounded distribution if one lands.
← requiresA fully optimised life cannot accommodate luck — unallocated time and money are what let you say yes.
An option you cannot exercise is worth nothing. Slack is the capacity to act on the opportunity, without which increasing your exposure to opportunity is pointless.
← has exampleBuild a thin end-to-end path first and aim from real feedback, rather than specifying the whole system in advance.A cheap try with a capped cost and real information as the payoff. It is optionality with a compiler — you fire to find out where the target is, not because you expect to hit.
← has exampleYou cannot predict which attempt will land, so the only reliable lever is making more attempts.Many cheap tries with capped losses and one uncapped winner. The rule is convexity restated for a career rather than a portfolio.