I would explain this concept as two kinds of life philosophy and ways to approach the future.

1) "exponential" - which gets everybody happy at the beginning and then crushing them with hard reality after things start getting more and more complex. There are a lot of real life examples of doing this and I can rarely find the one which has brought the value at the end. In software development experience I have found this very wrong.

2) "logarithmic" - when you do a lot of investments into solving the hard structural/strategic problems at beginning and then riding much more far on the benefits they provide. This approach works pretty good in real life as well like investment into fundamental understanding, saving early so accumulated benefits get higher.