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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

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Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      Our explanatory model for HOW we’re doing this is flawed. We think we’re tightening a nut with a wrench when we’re actually welding a seam with an oxy torch. In a deep sense we don’t know what we’re doing or how. We are using this new stack *as a stack* for the first time.

      2 replies 6 retweets 68 likes
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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      To use a software term — not a metaphor since the new stack is software — this is the first integration test. We’ve switched with zero warning from half-complete unit testing of point solutions, to a full system integration test at max load.

      2 replies 9 retweets 81 likes
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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      The new stack was NOT ready. We were still running integration tests in emulation (aka tech futures), and working through unit tests in production systematically, sector by sector, app by app. What’s more, failure is not an option in this integration test. We cannot rollback.

      2 replies 3 retweets 46 likes
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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      There’s no rollback. We’re stuck with this deployment of this integration model of this stack for the time being. There’s no significant do-over or refactoring option here. We’ve locked in a path-dependent full deployment of the software-eaten world. Release candidate 1 *is* V1.

      2 replies 6 retweets 45 likes
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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      Now for the “crisis” part. Why is this a crisis? The techlash is over. Silicon Valley tech has won. We’ve been handed the game almost by walkover. We should be celebrating, right? Not quite. This is what I call suspiciously lucky. A crisis just happens to hand us the game? 🧐🤨

      3 replies 1 retweet 43 likes
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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      Two possibilities: 1. There really were deep reserves of serendipity in the 2-stack system and this really is a well-timed and “lucky” (for some values of “lucky”) smooth changeover. 2. The integration test is failing in all sorts of invisible ways. It’s a house of cards.

      2 replies 2 retweets 32 likes
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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      I’m betting the answer is 2. There’s going to be a huge pile of crap in the log file of this integration test to sort through. Full rollback is impossible, but we’ll do a lot of local, partial rollbacks/reverts to the old stack while we fix this in production.

      1 reply 2 retweets 40 likes
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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      In a way this is the other side of the yin-yang. Pre-covid was the old stack with patches of localized new stack units. The rollback will be new stack with patches of old stack units. It will be an unholy mess that will take a decade to cleanup.

      4 replies 3 retweets 51 likes
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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      So if this hypothesis is correct, the reboot problem is a tech problem: how to finish the unfinished stack that has been hot-swapped in? I think if the economic approach aims at this problem, it will “take” otherwise it will not, and trigger a secondary larger technology crisis.

      3 replies 1 retweet 22 likes
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    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 27
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      By which I don’t mean a tech market crisis like the dotcom bust, I mean an actual tech crisis like Y2K. But way harder.

      4 replies 1 retweet 20 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 30
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      Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

      https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1256100616553721856?s=21 …https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1256100616553721856 …

      Venkatesh Rao added,

      Venkatesh Rao @vgr
      Political outcomes are also at the end of a supply chain with a pattern of consent of the governed as the raw material, political apparatus for making policy as factories, and executive as supply chain. The political supply chain is as broken as goods, services, and money ones.
      Show this thread
      11:02 PM - 30 Apr 2020
      • 1 Like
      • Engineer Extraordinaire 👽
      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 30
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          Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Venkatesh Rao

          https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1256068731882450944?s=21 …https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1256068731882450944 …

          Venkatesh Rao added,

          Venkatesh Rao @vgr
          Macabre thing about covid is that the same demographics are at highest risk whether you open up slowly or quickly — the poor and unhealthy. Only question is whether they die of covid or destitution+desperation. If you try to minimize deaths, I think they end up being balanced? pic.twitter.com/wFkd0VdfmH
          Show this thread
          2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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