● Covered by 1 source · 1 reportLow impact1 positive
Embracing "Boring Technology" for Stability and Focused Innovation
Key points
- Companies have limited "innovation tokens" to spend on new technologies.
- Using new or unproven tech expends these tokens, diverting focus from core business.
- "Boring" technologies are well-understood, including their failure modes.
- Choosing stable tech allows innovation to be concentrated on the company's main mission.
The Concept of Innovation Tokens
The author introduces the concept of "innovation tokens," suggesting that every company has a limited supply of these tokens. These tokens can be spent on adopting new or unproven technologies. The general tendency is to overestimate the number of tokens available, leading to overspending on technical innovation.
Strategic Technology Choices
Choosing technologies like NodeJS, MongoDB, or new service discovery tools, or even writing a custom database, expends these innovation tokens. While such choices might be sensible for specialized companies (e.g., a JavaScript consultancy or a database company), they are often a distraction for companies focused on other primary missions, such as reinventing commerce or payments. Expending tokens on infrastructure innovation can delay success or lead to failure in the company's core business.
Defining "Boring" Technology
"Boring" technology is not synonymous with "bad" technology. Instead, it refers to established, well-understood tools that are reliable and have known failure modes. Examples include MySQL, Postgres, PHP, Python, Memcached, Squid, and Cron. The advantage of these technologies is their predictable behavior and the widespread understanding of their operational characteristics.
Impact on Business Focus
By opting for boring and stable technologies, companies can conserve their innovation tokens and direct their limited attention and resources towards their unique business challenges and core mission. This strategic choice allows for focused innovation where it matters most, rather than on the underlying technical stack, which can be adequately served by proven solutions.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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Reporting from
This article advocates for companies to choose established, "boring" technologies over new, innovative ones for their core infrastructure. This approach conserves a company's limited "innovation tokens" for their primary business mission rather than expending them on unproven technical stacks.