Comment by csours | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csours | Hacker News Reader

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Disclaimer: I work for a Ford competitor, but have no first-hand knowledge of this deal.

I'm thinking about the concept of 'frenemies' and jumping to some unsupported conclusions.

In tech you may have a turnaround of weeks or months for some products. In automotive, you may plan a new vehicle for 5 years and then in some cases produce it for up to 10 years after that, and then continue to support that vehicle for 10 more years.

Also, automotive customers do not support the idea of moving quickly and breaking things (excepting some Tesla customers).

This leads to relationships like 'frenemies' not making much sense in auto manufacturing. If you can't trust the other party to be there for years, you don't start a relationship.

Now the mostly baseless speculation: It seems that Mark Fields felt that Ford brought a lot of value to a potential Ford-Google partnership. I assume Fields though Google would understand and value that as well, and it seems that Google did not value that, leading to misunderstanding and frustration.

I don't know any serious business that embraces 'breaking things' when a bit more effort and time ensures that nothing gets broken.

"move fast and break things" is not suppose to be taken literally, it's tongue in cheek. It means, "while you move fast, you can make mistakes, break things, learn from those mistakes, correct and deliver faster."

This is more understandable in software which is more disposable, but the same concept can still apply in other industries. It applies more in the research phase before development of the actual product.

Yes, I'm sure the first manufacturer of ABS systems figured that was the way to go.

Really, the only branch of industry where this kind of attitude makes sense is infotainment. Everywhere else - when there is money by paying customers on the line - it is as good as handing your customers to the competition.

There have been a lot of problems with software/firmware in the auto industry. Each instance has not been the end of the particular company in that case.

Software is hard, and firmware is harder. Every modern car has computers to handle a number of very important systems (ignition, diagnostics, ABS, traction control, throttle, speed plate, and so on). Break-fix cycles are almost unavoidable in today's world. It happens with lowly kitchen appliances, and it happens with cars, trucks, airplanes, boats...

Yes, but those were mistakes that were not part of the operational attitude of those companies, they did not see them as 'normal' but rather as 'abnormal and to very much be avoided'.

It's the normalization of failure that's the problem here.

I disagree. R&D in any industry needs to encourage risk taking. The key is to contain the risks within R&D and never allow them to leak into production.

R&D that is not willing to break things will stagnate.

> The key is to contain the risks within R&D and never allow them to leak into production.

Then you're out of touch. The whole 'move fast and break things' refers to production.

Even Facebook disowned it. Now they say "move fast with stable infra." http://mashable.com/2014/04/30/facebooks-new-mantra-move-fas...

Breaking things only makes sense when the stuff you built is small enough to not matter much (it's a tradeoff, etc)

It goes along with CEOs who wear T-shirts to work.

A yes, suits. Magical garments that grant +10 to product stability.

What's the word for this kind of phrase? One where the author of the sentence has some kind of skewed world view, and we get to see a glimpse of it?

Parapraxis, or Freudian slip maybe?

I think you're looking for "realism".

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