Move Fast and Break Things with a Stable Infrastructure

I fear that we may be on the verge of replacing a stable institution in need of creative improvement with one that is both broken and unstable.

Photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash

“Move fast and break things” was an internal motto originally used by Facebook. In a 2009 interview, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.” Many high-tech entrepreneurs ascribe to this philosophy. In 2014, Facebook changed its motto to “Move fast with stable infrastructure”. Breaking things was cast aside for the need for a stable infrastructure.

Breaking things has been a feature of modern life for a very long time. Breaking things provides us in large part with a seemingly endless procession of

• New business ventures, large and small

• New and improved technologies that enrich our lives

• Scientific discoveries and breakthroughs that have increased health and life expectancy

• Political changes brought about by the will of the electorate

The latter half of the second millennium of the current era experienced four important upheavals, each in large part making progress with a breaking-things mentality:

• A Scientific Revolution that began in the sixteenth century.

• An Industrial Revolution that followed in the eighteenth century.

• Rise of Capitalism associated with the Industrial Revolution as the primary organizing principle of modern economies.

• Rise in Representative Democracies beginning in the eighteenth century.

The question of causation vs correlation as to near concurrence of these four important changes is best left to historians. But it is certainly true that very dramatic changes in the global human condition have occurred since then … most notably a spike in per capita productivity (first figure below) and a dramatic decrease in poverty (second figure).

What these four areas of human endeavor have in common is something that economists call ‘creative destruction’. Creative destruction refers to a process whereby innovative ideas, processes, and products replace obsolete or outdated ones. In the economic sphere, innovative companies (operating in a well-functioning capitalist economy) provide better, cheaper, or simply more desirable products. A similar process occurs in other realms as well.

Challenging accepted knowledge, principles, and theories is embedded in the scientific method. Science progresses as new knowledge replaces old and new theories replace those found to be inadequate or wrong.

“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door” is a phrase often used to express the power of entrepreneurial innovation.

Representative democracy has creative destruction built into its raison d’etre. As so eloquently stated in our own Declaration of Independence,

“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Creative destruction does not mean that new things always replace old ones. Creative destruction means that some (perhaps even many) new innovations will also fail. At the micro scale, move-fast-and-break-things is a means of being certain that fresh ideas are encouraged, tested, and evaluated as regular practice. Innovations that fail are abandoned in favor of those that succeed. Too much breaking can, of course, lead to catastrophic failure. Successful individuals and ventures manage this risk. Facebook’s tolerance for risk seems to have decreased as it became more successful. Replacing a focus on ‘breaking things’ with a focus on ‘stable infrastructure’ expressed the changing needs of that enterprise.

At the macro scale, things are a little different. When a large number of individuals and/or enterprises each risk their individual resources, there is little chance of catastrophic failure of the overall system. It’s true that failure of an obsolete mousetrap manufacturer would be catastrophic for its owners and employees. But the benefit to the larger economy is one of the things that provided improvements in the human condition over the last couple of hundred years.

Creative destruction at the macro level does have its challenges. Arguments put forth for totally free markets fail when faced with the realities of our all too human failings. Managing creative destruction at the macro scale requires some level of collective governance. Balancing the benefits of freedom to innovate against harm – real and potential – requires us to develop and implement stable systems of rules, laws, and norms. When working properly, individuals and organizations may be allowed to break, but systems must not.

We now have two businessmen taking a sledgehammer to the federal government. They are correct in diagnosing that the federal government needs some creative destruction. There is little doubt that there is some level of waste and fraud that needs to be addressed. Many Americans would even agree that we could govern the country just fine with a leaner more efficient government. On these things Trump and Musk would find much agreement. On these things we might even get much agreement that creative destruction might just be what is needed.

But these two so-called savvy businessmen are antithetically working AGAINST the type of creative destruction that led to vast improvements in the human condition over the last couple of hundred years. THAT creative destruction is inherently creative, not destructive. THAT creative destruction puts creating BEFORE destroying, not after. THAT creative destruction doesn’t have pre-ordained outcomes. In THAT creative destruction, innovations live or die only after they’ve been tested in the marketplace of products or ideas.

What is most disturbing about what is going on is that we have no idea what is going to be created to replace that which is being destroyed. Destruction without creation is a recipe for chaos. We’re talking about our federal government. Of all the institutions in our country, this is the one most we rely on to remain stable.

Trump and Musk seem to believe that a wonderful phoenix will miraculously arise out of the ashes of what is being destroyed. I fear that we may be on the verge of replacing a stable institution in need of creative improvement with one that is both broken and unstable.