I spent a couple of days in december visiting my Dad. It was quiet and peaceful, just Dad, Myself, and his cats. We spent the evenings sharing the things we had in common—listening to Dad’s obscure music and complaining about our careers.

He talked about ship-building, I talked about building software—The jargon was different, but the people were exactly the same.

Same denial of risks, same castigation of whistleblowers, and the same putting everything off until it explodes. Schedules that reflect the dreams and ambitions of the company, rather than the treachery of a complex system. With no room for failure, each and every fuck up compounds, as the company moves from one artificial crisis to another.

He called it “A conspiracy of optimism.”