Is Software Good Enough?

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We also had a moment where software
engineers were either like superstars and the Elon

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Musk and even I don't know,
Zuckerberg was looked at as this like cool,

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funny, weird geek and these you
had these geeks who are all those

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billionaires and kind of did all this
amazing stuff, but then you didn't look

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at kind of the other side of
it, of the darkness and the or

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even not even the not only in
the darkness, the good enoughness, the

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sort of it's non flashy, it's
not amazing, that's not great. Welcome

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to the santhral life, the place
where curiosity meets depth and discussions that matter

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today. I'm thrilled to have Paula
Biowski joined me with the years spent dissecting

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the nuances of software culture. In
Brilliant, Paula brings an unparalleled insight into

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good enoughness that shapes technology and work
life. This is the cause of people,

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are you familiar with? What's interesting
is that Paula's research challenges the false

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narratives that we get from Silicon Valley
that technology is just this relentless pursuit of

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innovation, and it invites us to
explore the values of things like maintenance care

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and the human element in our high
speed, in a high schech world,

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so stationed for conversation that's bound to
shift your perceptions. Paul. It really

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excited to have you on the podcast. I enjoyed envoid your work and enjoyed

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your book and middleware, and then
also excited to talk with you about all

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things around software development and good enoughness
and good enough culture. But just starting

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off by saying, thanks for joining
me on the podcast, Yeah, no

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problem, my pleasure. And you
said middleware. But my tech and my

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book is called middle tech, which
is kind of important. But it's important

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because middleware. It is a little
bit about middleware. So that's not like

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it's not about that. But yeah, yeah, that's true. My brain

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just kept going to the word middleware
for some reason. Yeah, maybe it

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should be called middleware. We should
stop the press, we should tell the

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publishers. Yeah wait, you know. But that's an interesting point though,

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because it's like obviously a middle tech
company that's working on software development, you

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know, so obviously where the tech
and the where kind of come together there.

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But I think, you know,
it's really compelling about this. I

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mean, across that there's a ton
of things I want to dive into.

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But obviously there is this like main
idea around good enoughness right yes, as

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a kind of overarching theme, and
this is something that for the deep audience

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deep listeners, I guess you know. I did a conversation with David gray

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Waiter and don nappis you a few
months ago that was about kind of software

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modularity and like the at the end
of the production process, and that was

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interesting. That's one of the things
that David, who was a computer scientist

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and now was doing is his graduate
work in anthropology, was kind of talking

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about and reflecting on this idea of
you know, when software engineers are working,

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especially in bigger organizations, if they're
doing kind of an agile process or

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even old school waterfall, that they
are, you know, each individually kind

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of responsible for a part of the
software, but they don't necessarily see what

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happens downstream. And this argument was
kind of about this question of responsibility,

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like, you know, I don't
know what it's doing later, not that

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I don't care if it does hardware
good, but you know, so folks

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don't have to listen to that episode
to go here. But that's kind of

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one of the places I was thinking
about with this, like because obviously this

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theme of good enoughness is really interesting
of like software is good enough to do

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to get out, to get shipped, and so I was thinking about that

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in relationship to this question of responsibility
of what happens when it goes out.

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That's a bigger question, you know, I'm gonna ask that. But then

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I also want to kind of think
about what is what is good enoughness in

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the first place, you know,
for folks that they're trying to get a

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sense of what's happening here. Yeah, okay, well there's I guess my

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book touches upon two worlds of good
enoughness, and that is the tricky thing

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to maybe for myself to try to
organize my own field work. I know,

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I spent two years at this software
company in Berlin, and after a

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while I noticed that so too good
enoughness. One at play is the goodness

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enoughness of software. That software is
patchy, kind of shipped out at not

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a perfect stage, but it's good
enough to go right and it kind of

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have bugs, but those bugs can
be fixed later. And I could talk

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about that good enoughness, and I'd
love to talk about that to good enoughness

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but another, good enoughness is about
really a work culture, so kind of

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in the whole anthropology of work,
sociology of work, sociology of corporations.

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That's it's kind of like that situated
of a technography of what it means to

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push back against a narrative of excellence
at a company, right that or narrative

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of excellence that we all work under
under the this like capitalist machine that being

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perfect being great. You know how
many times a lot of our students come

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up to us and are super sad
about like a bare minimum of the sort

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of like or a median grade or
something, and you're like, hey,

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this is good enough, It's fine, right, But so we're all living

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under that, whether that's our students
or us or everyone, Yeah, just

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just in our society. And I
think that this this is also an example

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of how good enoughness can be stabilized
as a culture of doing. It's not

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even doing the better minimal, it's
doing so yeah, it's a good and

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enough. I think those two words
quite seriously. So do you see.

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So there's these two forks, and
I talk about them too, sometimes simultaneously.

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Sometimes one is an example of the
other, and sometimes you could take

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a few chapters and speak to one
and speak to the other form of good

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enoughness. Yeah, yeah, no
cool. I think it's it's such an

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interesting theme and I appreciate the way
that that you split those up over it.

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It is like part of it is
the software itself, the other part

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is the work culture, which I
think is really important, right, especially

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because yeah, you know, and
you mentioned this a few times in the

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book too, but just we are
reeling, i think societally from the Facebook

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mantra of like move fast and break
things, right, that's like been the

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Silicon Valley tech borrow totally be demon
innovation at all costs kind of kind of

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thought process, and so good enough
is a nice interesting foil to that.

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Yeah you know, did you notice
that? Is that something that you've seen

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as kind of a reflection response because
you're you're working in Germany, right,

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so we're kind of we're not in
the US Silicon Valley. So it's like,

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is there is there kind of a
European difference there? I mean,

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I don't like attribute purely to culture, but maybe it is, you know,

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is it like what this is happening
here in terms of like why that

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differences seems so pronounced totally. So
maybe I'll even back up Adam and talk

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about my fieldwork happened in kind of
twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen and these years

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for those of us who don't remember
through some COVID fog brain or something.

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Then before you know, we were
living in a tech environment where there was

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only a bit of skepticism starting to
bubble up, but you still had these

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like the superheroes of tech, the
Silicon Valley mecha of like as you said,

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move that fast and break things.
We had sort of I would think

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it was the peak at the time
of a lot of social networks that we

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were using. It kind of was
just starting to be formed. There was

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forms of sex skepticism which we still
we already have around data privacy, around

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social media and what they're doing to
us, what they're doing to young people,

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blah blah blah. We get that
whole, you know, the critique

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that we are living in now,
But that was only starting to trickle up

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at the beginning, right when I
was doing my field work. And another

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thing is that we also had a
moment where software engineers were either like superstars

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and the Elon Musk and even I
don't know, Zuckerberg was looked at as

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this like cool, funny, weird
geek and these you had these geeks who

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are all those billionaires and kind of
did all this amazing stuff. But then

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you didn't look at kind of the
other side of it, of the the

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darkness and the or even not even
the not only the darkness, the good

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enoughness, the sort of it's non
flashy, it's not amazing and it's not

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great. So but also I did
my field work for at first I went

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to the Silicon Valley, right I
went, and I was I was there

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for a summer, and I was
just interviewing a bunch of people on a

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different project that I was working on, and I kind of felt for those

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of us who did field work in
the Silicon Valley. We know it's a

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very weird and very specific place that
is very technologically solutionists. They love technology,

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they believe in technology. They also
America, in my opinion as a

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non American I'm a Canadian, is
also has a culture, a work culture

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that is about really excellence and drive
and you can do anything, and about

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meritocracy and all these things that a
lot of I think European work cultures don't

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have. And it also reflects itself
in even the labor laws in Germany and

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in a lot of countries in Europe. So I mean I lived in different

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countries in Europe. I did my
field work in Berlin, and I met

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some expad Americans even who used to
be in San Francisco and kind of were

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saying, I just can't handle it
anymore. Or you had Brazilians who lived

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in San Francisco and then also moved
to Berlin because they really thought this work

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culture is not for me. I
can't take doing this, you know,

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working from morning to evening or even
just trying to really fully believe in our

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technology and you constantly have to like
repeat slogans of the company and wear company

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hoodies and be excited about the like
company culture, and it's not work is

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not everything in a European maybe context. And I know that's a very big

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stereotype, but I know noticed the
stereopot type of a little bit at play

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in my field. So I'm jumping
different topics out of it. But I

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hope I answered your question that I
think there was a good enough environment.

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I think in an European environment and
work environment that lend itself to good enoughness.

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So yeah, did I answer some
of your question today? It definitely

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yes. Yeah, you know,
you know you're great because like you know,

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we'll rab it hole around different different
ideas. Yeah, exactly. But

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another I think that's a really important
point. And yeah, and it's like

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I'm not trying to draw to to
stark of a contrast there, but I

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think it's like, you know,
for for the the US oriented audience,

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right, just kind of pointing out
in the myth of Silicon valid that we've

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heard global here. We know,
it's like this global mythical place totally,

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and to your point, it is
this very unique cultural kind of kind of

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zone. And so there's that again
I'm saying because this is kind of when

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I was coming into your work,
like that's where I was thinking about from

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from this idea of the Silicon Valley
perspective. And so uh, I also

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felt a lot of resis with this
idea of good enoughness as a form of

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resistance almost right in terms of you
know, to manage aerial practices and to

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and but also to bringing forward things
like care, you know. And so

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I appreciate it the way that your
work both kind of brings us into like

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science and technology studies, but then
also into like work practices and ethics of

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care and how people navigate those those
different parts of the world. And so

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I want to make sure we spend
some time on the software development itself because

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I I love all these the bigger
questions too as part of this, you

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know, because that doesn't else.
But like, so let's let's just walk

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through a little bit of like how
good enough happens in middle tech, right?

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And so in this case of like
both, some areas that stood out

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to me was thinking about software as
a social process, right, And this

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also links to the like I think
about the conversation I had with with David

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and Don before about the idea of
modularity and software development, but you approached

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this actually in a quite different way, which I like. And so think

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about the like the social dynamics that
how this impacts the way that that people

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do software in the programming team but
also amongst managers. So let's kind of

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start there, and like, what
does it mean that software is a social

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like a kind of a social process, constract practice, whatever, sociotechnical object,

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whatever your terms buzzwords you like to
use. Yeah, yeah. So

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basically we have a few things that
make it quite a social object that people

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who don't know much about software don't
know, and I didn't know going into

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it. One is that software gets
old. There's something called legacy code.

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And if you're not building a new
startup from scratch, and you're just like,

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you know, an older company like
middle Tech, which built mapping and

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navigation technology, you are sometimes ten
twenty thirty years old. And what does

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that mean. That means that you
have code that is old and is aging

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with you as a company. So
the people who are building code are building

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on top of other people's code.
So you have to imagine like an old

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like Google doc that you're just kind
of liked to, but you have to

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make sure that the other sentences and
that Google doc are also like somehow making

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sense. And sometimes they don't make
sense. You have to kind of what

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is called refactor them. You have
to like update them to use the language

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that you want to use or whatever. But you still have to work with

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those sentences. You can't just throw
them away. I mean, sometimes you

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can throw them away, but that
is very shaky. Sometimes your system crashes

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because you throw away a bunch of
paragraphs in your Google doc. Let's just

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use that metaphor, right, So
that's one way where you can imagine.

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You could even see that Adam wrote
this line, Paula wrote this other line,

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and you can actually look into the
like kind of history of the code

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and see that someone who's not even
working at the office anymore has written that

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section. So this poses a challenge
because suddenly you have to work with somebody

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who's not there, sort of these
ghosts of software past as like sometimes I

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like to call it, and if
you can imagine, sometimes you have to

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be like, ah, okay,
I don't get this good enough. I'm

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just going to like, finally,
how work with this? I don't fully

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know what it means, or I
don't think you know fully what it does.

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Let's just like build on top of
this and let's just run this code

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and see if it crashes like fingers
crossed it doesn't, you see what I

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mean? So you can't really fully
understand what the layers are underneath you,

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and as our companies age, which
they are, and we're using them constantly,

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and these softwares that are embedded within
our system, our whole infrastructure of

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everything from transport to ticketing systems to
you name it. Then you can imagine

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all the years and years of all
these ghosts we're working with. So that's

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the one layer of good enoughness,
of the sort of of the legacy of

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good enoughness. You have to work
with something and you can't be perfect because

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a lot of complexities are coming into
play. Does that make sense? Am

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I not going too fast? Okay? So that's one way of good enough.

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Another way is simply that you have
teams working on things simultaneously and you

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have to constantly review each other.
I don't know, people don't know that

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you're kind of code reviewing each other. Again, back to this Google doc

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example, you constantly have to review
other people's paragraph sentences before pushing out the

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code. And sometimes, you know
how it is like you just want to

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go get a beer with your friends, or you have to pick up your

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kids from school, and you just
go like, oh whatever, I'm just

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gonna review it. Plus you give
them a plus two. Plus two is

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like the best review. Plus one
is like you need to fix something,

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and minus one you need to like
ditch it, et cetera. So there's

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like a review system and sometimes you
just go act good enough I'm just gonna

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so that way. It's also very
social because it's like a peer review,

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constant peer review of each other's code, and we know as academics also peer

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review is someone is good enough,
we're just like, yeah, this could

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fly, this could be at a
journal. Right, So that's also so

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there's many other ways. I'm not
gonna get into all of the ways,

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but you can start seeing that software
is extremely social. And I think in

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social relations are not about excellence.
They're about messiness, and they're about like

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making things work and constantly negotiating,
constantly compromising, just like you do with

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your friends or your neighbors, your
parents, right, that we don't have

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perfect relations. So I think once
we start looking at that relational aspect of

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yeah, of software, then you
start seeing okay, well no, it

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is good enough. Yeah yeah,
yeah. I mean that's a really interesting

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point too, because it's like,
uh, and you touched on this in

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the book too, but like there
we have this kind of false idea that

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software is this pristine thing. It's
like, oh, it is beautiful architecture

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and it's like thought out and fully
crafted, right, yeah, but your

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work kind of says actually, when
we dive into it actually is. It's

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quite as social as a conversation that's
kind of being made as we go,

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built on other languages that we're drawing
from, you know, totally. Yeah,

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And if I could just add to
that, Adam, another thing that

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I really learned, and this is
where it's the term good enoughness came from

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the field because in engineering there's a
term this good enoughness, and software engineers

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have written about good enough software.
And also the whole I mean cloud computing

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and update culture within the software industry
that Internet has brought means that software isn't

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packaged into the little CD that we
put into our hardware and then it's finished

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right before you finish software product,
and then you have it. You shipped

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it in a CD the way we
do a book, right, and it's

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quite static as an object. But
here now you can constantly update, and

250
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you are constantly getting pings, pings, pings on your phone or on your

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computer where software is being updated.
It's because you're always in a state of

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good enoughness as an engineer. You're
always just going like, this is good

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enough for now, let's ship it
and then we'll see what happens in the

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real world. And how it reacts
to the software or how software our legacy

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code or many layers react with the
actual real world, and then we're going

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to update it. Right, so
that even principle of building software is almost

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build into the logic of how we
build software today. You see what I

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mean? So that good enoughness.
If you talk to any engineer, they're

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like, yeah, obviously everything's good
enough. But if you kind of talk

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to a manager who wants to get
a client, be like, no,

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no, our software is going to
be really great, really robust. We're

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going to deliver a great product at
week whatever, forty four. We're doing

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it, We're pushing it out.
You see what I mean. So this

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is the the also in congruency,
and I think, yeah, that's also

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that was also a tricky thing about
my research with engineers versus my research with

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management. That's maybe another yeah did
you see your topic? Yeah, yeah,

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No, I think let's dive into
that, because that doesn't the interesting

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and important point where it's like developers
encoders that don't and are not working directly

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with customers, right, they there's
a different level of pressure, right,

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or a different level of kind of
awareness of they are maybe thinking more sociality

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or social socially within their organization,
yeah, or with their manager. Right.

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But then it's like an external facing
person and I've worked, you know,

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on client success side of businesses,
I've worked on like internal sides,

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and it's like and they're very different, right, because you have to your

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language does change your thoughts of like
how do I interact with my teammates in

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a relationship with the consumer customer wants
versus I'm just working with my internal team,

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So like, yeah, that's an
interesting tension there of like, yeah,

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how does that play out? We're
good enough? This doesn't feel like

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it's good enough to the manager sometimes, yeah, or at least they're not

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spoken about that way. Yeah,
exactly. So there's so many layers that

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I it's hard for me to organize
this in my mind, but I'm gonna

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try. Is that So one thing
is that we're thinking, let's let's even

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just talk about like engineers themselves.
There's all sorts of different engineers. And

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the engineers I worked with are quite
privileged. Their meat privileged, meaning that

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they a lot of them are research
and development engineers and they're working at like

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a nice stable company. Their research
and development engineers oftentimes like don't have this

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pressure to push something out at a
certain time, and even if they did,

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there were also other groups that had
to of course have deadlines. They

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oftentimes had Basically, their their product
is has years and years of history and

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it hasn't there's it's an asset for
a lot of let's say it's mainly companies,

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but it was a navigation system,
so basically it's an asset that has

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been around for a long time.
So it's almost like the client needs them

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versus they need the client, if
you know what I mean. They kind

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of already have a stable market that
there there is not much of a huge

295
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pressure. I mean they would have
to really mess up to really like be

296
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fired. They they're quite embedded in
a lot of systems, so they have

297
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to keep it running at good enough
speed. Now going back to the engineers,

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there's other engineers in Kiev are now
not in Kiev anymore, but Kiev,

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Krakhov, Bangalore is Global Seals,
which were actually doing a lot of

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the let's call it dirty work or
the fast coding, and they did not

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have this luxury of good enoughness.
So good enoughness can be is a luxury.

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It's a freedom in many ways to
say this is good enough. I'm

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going for a beer, you see
that moment. A lot of people think

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good enough is just about mediocrity and
nobody wants to be good enough. But

305
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actually a lot of these engineers are
so happy to google work in a good

306
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enough company because they can say no
beer time, No, I'm picking up

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my kid from school, No I'm
going to my kids recital or whatever.

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I'm finishing work. Work is not, you know, they're able to do

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that. They have the freedom to
say that someone in Bangalore who needs to

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finish their code reviews or whatever it
is that they're doing as an outsourcing company,

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has to finish at a certain time, you see what I mean?

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So that the good enough has a
privilege, and there's different layers of privilege

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of depending on what engineer you are, of how much good enoughness you can

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allow yourself at work. Yeah,
and then the manager question, which is

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another work and they don't like the
term. Of course, they don't like

316
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the term good enough. And also
a few managers who I spoke to were

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also I don't really felt kind of
hurt by the term good enough or they

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they thought they look they saw themselves
as like kind of just I don't know,

319
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taking any advantage of their workers,
or like pressuring their workers and not

320
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really caring about them. And that's
really not what I wanted to get across.

321
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But it's I think it's a tricky
thing because the logic of excellence and

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the logic of I don't know,
a corporate work that runs on key performance

323
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indicators for those of us who know
that term, or you know, you

324
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have to have metrics that make sure
that you have enough bugs being squashed and

325
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enough productivity that's happening. All of
that logic is there and you and as

326
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a manager have to work under that
logic, whether you sit down and listen

327
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to your engineers and see what do
you really want? What are you good

328
00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:30.960
at? Of course they do that, but then that logic is still in

329
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bubbling up from underneath, you know
what I mean. So I think that's

330
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yeah, that was tricky. That
was very tricky to like say, hey,

331
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good enough is great and they were
like, no, no, it's

332
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not great, and that you're making
me look stupid, you know. So

333
00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:45.519
yeah, that was hard. No, that's it's interesting too because it's like

334
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there's this is often that question too, I mean in any kind of like

335
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power differential in higher case, especially
at workplaces like this, right, Like

336
00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.079
I mean even like the entire rise
of the managerial class. Right, Yeah,

337
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there's kind of this this like built
in resentment a little bit from the

338
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worker class that's you know, usually
under the managerial class. Yeah, as

339
00:22:03.960 --> 00:22:04.960
a question of why do I need
to be managed? On the one hand,

340
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right, and it's like, you
know, and scrum is like is

341
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one of the methods that we see
often in software development, right, yes,

342
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of that you could have the interesting
tensions you kind of noted in the

343
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book tour This, like the the
managers saw that as a great way to

344
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be able to know what's going on. But then like you know, you

345
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had uh, programmers being like scrum
is stupid, Like yeah, basically actually

346
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help us get anything done, you
know, And it's like we have to

347
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just either have a daily stand up
or whatever it is. And it's like

348
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this interesting back and forth that's also
on one hand, like an interesting kind

349
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of forced sociality also, right of, like let's be seen and kind of

350
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share the work that we have coming
up. Not that it's saying scrum is

351
00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:41.599
bad, but just like there's an
in intension that we do see like different

352
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different individuals like finding it more or
less valuable. Yeah, where managers kind

353
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of more uniformly find something like that
helpful because that's actually what their work is

354
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is how do we see what's happening? Yeah, theory, how do we

355
00:22:52.079 --> 00:22:56.000
make things transparent? That's a huge
Yeah, definitely, that was the huge

356
00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:59.920
issue here is how to make we
make something transparent? And we have a

357
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:03.640
methodology for that. And for those
who don't work in the kind of corporate

358
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software, there's these methodologies that help, you know, managers organize their tech

359
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workers, and one of them is
called scrum or agile. There's other forms

360
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and other ways of doing things.
But a lot of engineers would tell you

361
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they were like, I don't need
scrum, I don't need stand ups,

362
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I don't need this. This is
all for the manager, whereas the manager

363
00:23:21.400 --> 00:23:25.119
would say, yeah, that's just
like the big headedness of our engineers talking.

364
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They actually do need this because without
this they'll just be completely lost.

365
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So it's really trying to show your
legitimacy of as a worker that I'm okay

366
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without this. And there's this tension
that's not a software engineering tension, is

367
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attention and any sort of work struggle, of a power struggle of who has

368
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the freedom to choose right, who
has the freedom to work in a certain

369
00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:51.680
way? Yeah, and what is
the manager worker relation? And you can

370
00:23:52.359 --> 00:23:56.319
go back to Marx, you can
go back to I don't know even yeah,

371
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sort of tailorism, et cetera,
and just kind of like app map

372
00:24:00.759 --> 00:24:04.839
all these tensions. I'm not somebody
who's expert amount of doing that fully in

373
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this book, but you can see
that tensions, especially in one of my

374
00:24:08.440 --> 00:24:15.680
chapters play out on I think it's
the one on managing software engineers. Yeah,

375
00:24:15.799 --> 00:24:18.240
it's yeah, managing good enoughness.
It's the chapter four. Yeah,

376
00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:22.920
got to manage that good enoughness,
you know. Yeah. But I think

377
00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:26.359
that's an interesting point too, because
it's like the whenever we're kind of working

378
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:30.640
with a workplace hierarchy, of the
different kinds of like micro politics that can

379
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:33.519
come in there, you know,
it's like that ultimately also shapes the quality

380
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of the software, right. Yeah. And it's like this interesting idea because

381
00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:40.519
since we have a you know today, it's like nobody's surprised when it's like,

382
00:24:40.519 --> 00:24:41.759
oh, you open your computer and
it says, oh, want to

383
00:24:41.759 --> 00:24:45.279
download a update? For some software. Great, you open your your cell

384
00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:47.319
phone and ask you the same thing, or it just does it in the

385
00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:49.279
background, you know, to the
point we don't even notice it sometimes that

386
00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:52.519
that's just like part of what we
do now. Yes, I mean I

387
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:56.759
remember getting the AOL CDs in the
mail, yes, as a kid,

388
00:24:56.880 --> 00:25:00.920
you know, and it's like this
this you know, I don't. It's

389
00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:03.079
like that transition is so common now. It's like it's it's feels archaic to

390
00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:07.279
even think about that. But it's
like a crazy idea to think that the

391
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:10.480
software is printed on a CD and
then just passed out And honestly, like,

392
00:25:10.519 --> 00:25:11.160
I know this is not related to
the work, but just like it

393
00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:15.960
had me thinking about both the making
of books which we have and like DVDs

394
00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:18.599
in like film that we do.
Like these are also like produced works that

395
00:25:18.640 --> 00:25:19.680
do not get continually updated. I
mean they can't. You can have a

396
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:22.559
second, third edition of your book, you know, but it's yeah,

397
00:25:22.759 --> 00:25:26.559
not anywhere as fast as a yeah
sprint, you know, for good reasons,

398
00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:29.720
or a TikTok or whatever it is. Yet you're you're, yeah,

399
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:33.759
you don't have this flow, this
constant waterfall of information that you're constantly updating

400
00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:36.720
yet. But even like when you're
finishing writing writing a book, to write

401
00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:38.720
dissertation or thesis or anything, or
even a paper for your class, if

402
00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:41.400
you're doing that, it's like they're
also still like you. You probably recognize

403
00:25:41.440 --> 00:25:45.000
the good enough feeling, right,
It's like, Okay, well I got

404
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:47.759
to turn it in. Yeah,
yeah, you know, no, but

405
00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:51.519
I think good enough this. It's
funny because when you're writing a book,

406
00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:56.240
and I'm sure the authors you've spoke
to in the past have had identified with

407
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.279
this, and we we identified this. We write about what we know and

408
00:26:00.359 --> 00:26:03.039
we care about. And this is
a bit bizarre, but I kind of

409
00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:07.119
realized that just after even just finishing
the book. I thought, oh man,

410
00:26:07.559 --> 00:26:11.200
my life is very much like lives
to the like logic of good enoughness.

411
00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:15.240
And it's something I deeply, deeply
believe in. And I you know,

412
00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:18.599
I mentioned this earlier. I don't
know this was off off record or

413
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:22.680
on record, but that I'm also
a musician and I published albums, et

414
00:26:22.759 --> 00:26:26.960
cetera, and I tour and that
was a very tricky thing to juggle being

415
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:30.759
a professional musician and an academic at
the same time. And it was always

416
00:26:30.759 --> 00:26:33.400
this constant like this is good enough. I have to this is done.

417
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:37.680
I have to run onto something else. And that's not just original. If

418
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:40.960
your parent and you work at the
same time, these are two jobs.

419
00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:44.400
These are huge jobs that you're doing
at the same time, and you always

420
00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:45.200
have to go, no, this
is good enough for now, I have

421
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:48.480
to pick my kids off from school
or whatever. Right, So you're constantly

422
00:26:48.519 --> 00:26:52.759
in this tension of this has to
be good enough, right, this,

423
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:55.359
this has to be enough. There
is a deadline, it needs to be

424
00:26:55.400 --> 00:27:00.359
finished. So I think that it's
really important to remember that that we're not

425
00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:04.559
all excellent, we're not all awesome. And the term good enoughness, by

426
00:27:04.559 --> 00:27:14.480
the way, comes from actually sort
of pediatrics, and there's the few people

427
00:27:14.480 --> 00:27:18.359
in medicine who've actually wrote a paper
around the good enough mother and writing about

428
00:27:18.400 --> 00:27:22.559
like what it means to be not
perfect, and it's actually very healthy to

429
00:27:23.160 --> 00:27:29.119
actually talk to mothers as doctors.
It was kind of a plea to doctors

430
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:33.680
to really highlight that mothers should not
be looked at as excellent, because once

431
00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:37.319
you look at yourself as good enough, you're kind of there's less stress,

432
00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:41.839
there's just tension, there's more understanding
of yourself, and that's also plays very

433
00:27:41.880 --> 00:27:45.839
well on your relationship with your child, you see what I mean. So

434
00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:52.440
that understanding I'm good enough, that's
okay is very freeing and it is very

435
00:27:52.960 --> 00:27:57.519
relaxing, I guess, and I
think that. Yeah, But again it's

436
00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:02.119
tricky because it's also comes from a
space of privilege to do that, right.

437
00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:04.240
A lot of people can't do that. They'll lose their jobs, they'll

438
00:28:04.279 --> 00:28:07.920
whatever, it will happen. You
know, if you say I'm just good

439
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:11.119
enough, so I can easy somebody, because that's a critique that comes to

440
00:28:11.119 --> 00:28:14.920
me. Okay, I could say
that as a professor sitting in Switzerland,

441
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:19.359
you know, doing some research in
Berlin among like R and D tech workers.

442
00:28:19.400 --> 00:28:25.599
Fine, but like go to yeah, a coding a farm in I

443
00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:30.119
don't know wherever Krakhoof or something and
or not crackwoof maybe anymore, but somewhere

444
00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:33.440
else, and then you'll see that
that's exactly and you'll see where what happens

445
00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:36.319
there. You can't just say like, ah, this is good enough,

446
00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:37.720
I'm leaving. No, you're gonna
lose your job and someone else take your

447
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.240
spot. Right, So so yeah, so that's that's tough. That's the

448
00:28:41.279 --> 00:28:45.480
tough thing. And that's the critique
I do get, and I understand that.

449
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:48.200
I just I want to paint it
as it is a reality that I

450
00:28:48.200 --> 00:28:53.559
think also is there that we don't
talk about even in the in our privileged,

451
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:56.839
very privileged societies, you know,
Yeah, No, I think it's

452
00:28:56.960 --> 00:29:00.480
it's important, iportant, and like
in general, it's I think that oftentimes

453
00:29:02.119 --> 00:29:06.720
social scientists we can get or as
social scientists, we can get kind of

454
00:29:06.759 --> 00:29:08.400
caught up in the in the privilege
critique where it's like, well, we

455
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:11.920
shouldn't be talking about something because it's
only for a privileged group. But it's

456
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:12.279
like, well, no, we
have to. We have if we're here

457
00:29:12.279 --> 00:29:15.799
to dissect society, we do have
to. It's totally fine to talk about

458
00:29:15.799 --> 00:29:17.799
that. And like that doesn't make
it, to your point, not real

459
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:19.279
or not valid, right, It
just means that it's it's for a certain

460
00:29:19.319 --> 00:29:22.079
group. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know so

461
00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:25.079
yeah, so totally find there.
But just like, but I think it's

462
00:29:25.079 --> 00:29:27.559
an interesting point because I do,
I do. We have interesting work too,

463
00:29:27.559 --> 00:29:30.559
I think as social scientists to to
kind of give ourselves permissions sometimes to

464
00:29:30.559 --> 00:29:34.640
to like both do research in places
that are that can be spots of like

465
00:29:34.920 --> 00:29:40.200
stated privilege or where you know,
awareness of privilege because I feel like we're

466
00:29:40.240 --> 00:29:42.279
not supposed to somehow, And honestly, I think that, on one hand,

467
00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:48.319
also might play into a bit of
uh, I don't know if it's

468
00:29:48.319 --> 00:29:51.440
a common I don't want to say
neuro seas of social science scientists, but

469
00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:53.519
just like this, this concern that
we're either not good enough also for the

470
00:29:53.559 --> 00:29:56.400
research, right and or that like
as good enough research is like in like

471
00:29:56.440 --> 00:30:00.160
the hardest places, right. Yeah, you know this also falls narrative that

472
00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:03.799
we have, which it's interesting kind
of think about the way that like good

473
00:30:03.880 --> 00:30:06.720
enoughness when you say it and think
about in any profession like it kind of

474
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:10.400
you see where it chips at you
either if you have it or privilege to

475
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:11.880
be able to do it or don't
you kind of say, well, what

476
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:15.799
am I doing right or wrong in
my own area? You know? As

477
00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:18.000
I think about that, that's interesting
way it kind of like seeps into you.

478
00:30:18.160 --> 00:30:22.359
Yes, And it's that's also the
I think that's the like I don't

479
00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:23.680
know, it has to do with
capitalism. It has to do with like

480
00:30:25.279 --> 00:30:30.240
this, you know, Nancy Fraser
talks about the crisis of care in capitalism

481
00:30:30.279 --> 00:30:36.119
and that like care. When you
start caring, you're not working hard enough.

482
00:30:36.160 --> 00:30:38.240
You're stopping and slowing down. Right, this is like the notion of

483
00:30:38.279 --> 00:30:45.640
slowing down is somehow, it's a
it's doesn't work well in our logic that

484
00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:48.880
we are living in. And I
think that that's that's difficult. That is

485
00:30:48.920 --> 00:30:52.599
the difficulty. And I think that's
that's something that we should definitely remember.

486
00:30:52.720 --> 00:30:57.720
And I do this work, and
I wrote this book just for people to

487
00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:03.480
also look beyond just learning about how
software works, but also to understand a

488
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:10.319
little bit of understand themselves in the
world. And I once I did touch

489
00:31:10.480 --> 00:31:14.160
somehow my students who I I you
know, I teach it this very elite

490
00:31:14.200 --> 00:31:18.000
business school that I sometimes have a
huge problem with is being here at full

491
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:22.880
disclosure because it's it's people who are
living this like non good it's just about

492
00:31:22.920 --> 00:31:27.160
Excellence's about being perfectly the best,
but going to a consultancy firm and like

493
00:31:27.480 --> 00:31:30.680
winning, winning when you have to
be the best of the best. And

494
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.160
and just to say, actually,
guys, you know, to say the

495
00:31:33.240 --> 00:31:37.839
first year, just beginning, first
day, students, good enoughness is still

496
00:31:37.880 --> 00:31:42.079
good, and you you there is
other spaces you know that you will find

497
00:31:42.119 --> 00:31:47.200
yourself and you don't have to be
excellent. And yeah, and that's that's

498
00:31:47.200 --> 00:31:49.279
I think, really really important.
But one last thing I want to say.

499
00:31:49.400 --> 00:31:52.519
Maybe I don't know if we have
to slowly wrap up or you have

500
00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:56.240
a few more questions, but the
second but a thing about also, I

501
00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:00.880
have this little anecdote in my conclusion
about you know, one of this good

502
00:32:00.880 --> 00:32:06.319
pie goodbye party to a few of
the engineers who are leaving to like,

503
00:32:06.480 --> 00:32:08.160
you know, the non good enough
companies. You know, they left for

504
00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:14.839
the big huge tech companies, the
Googles and the Microsoft's and the facebooks,

505
00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:19.559
and they were leaving, and then
I kind of met a bunch of engineers

506
00:32:19.559 --> 00:32:21.880
who were saying goodbye to them.
This was all like a beer guarden in

507
00:32:21.880 --> 00:32:24.720
Berlin, and even I they asked
me what my book was about, and

508
00:32:24.759 --> 00:32:29.200
I said, well, it's you
know, it's about the greatness of middle

509
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:32.119
tech because it's really like this space
of good enoughness and how good enoughness works.

510
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:37.160
And they their hearts sank. They
really were like, what good enoughness?

511
00:32:37.160 --> 00:32:38.559
Oh no? And you know,
like kind of this comparison of these

512
00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:43.559
these people who are celebrated who are
leaving, you know, these other workers.

513
00:32:43.599 --> 00:32:45.480
Yeah, they're going to Microsoft,
They're going to Google. Wow,

514
00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:50.680
so wonderful. But I'm staying behind, right, I'm working here for another

515
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:52.680
fifteen years already and I'm still here. You know, this is my good

516
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:57.720
enough job, and so in some
ways it's it does eat at these tech

517
00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:00.319
workers. I want to just say
that that I'm not painting this sort of

518
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:02.400
story of everyone be like, yeah, we have such a good job because

519
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:07.119
we could just coast around and freeload
and like be good enough all the time.

520
00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:09.160
It is a tension within them.
It's exactly the tension that you're talking

521
00:33:09.200 --> 00:33:14.839
about, Adam, that affects all
sorts of different placepople and different workforces that

522
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:19.200
they are also struggling with this term
that this is hard for them, that

523
00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:22.880
they want to be at Microsoft sometimes
because this logic, you know, these

524
00:33:22.920 --> 00:33:27.960
forces of post industrial capitalism work against
this logic. So they and they're part

525
00:33:28.000 --> 00:33:30.680
of this logic where we all feel
that, you know. So I just

526
00:33:30.720 --> 00:33:34.319
want to say that I felt that
among my engineers very much so too,

527
00:33:34.680 --> 00:33:37.279
that the struggle. That's a really
important point and I appreciate you bringing that

528
00:33:37.319 --> 00:33:39.519
up too, because you can you
can totally see on the one hand,

529
00:33:39.559 --> 00:33:45.160
how the idea can feel uncomfortable because
because even like on the one hand,

530
00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:47.160
like if you're in a certain working
environment socioeconomic class, you will lose your

531
00:33:47.240 --> 00:33:50.440
job if you're not if you don't
do work, that's good. Yeah,

532
00:33:50.799 --> 00:33:52.640
But then also if you're in a
more a more privileged class or even just

533
00:33:52.680 --> 00:33:57.920
more like you know, entrenched middle
class, it feels like you're not doing

534
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:00.359
enough. The enough part ironic if
you if you're just good enough, like

535
00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:02.880
you feel like I should be more
excellent and more better. So it just

536
00:34:02.880 --> 00:34:07.680
show us. It's always kind of
pulling us upwards regardless. And that's like

537
00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:10.719
an interesting challenge point that like I
think why it's such an effective kind of

538
00:34:10.760 --> 00:34:15.280
lens through which to think about,
Yeah, you know, software development,

539
00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:16.280
but I think to this point,
like the bigger question about how we do

540
00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:21.760
work in like late in post capras, well post industrial capra es not post

541
00:34:21.760 --> 00:34:24.239
capitalis are not there yet? Yes? Exactly? Not? Yeah? What

542
00:34:24.360 --> 00:34:29.039
the future of like labor is and
how this? Yeah, how is this?

543
00:34:29.159 --> 00:34:31.760
Like what potential for emancipation is there? Is there any? And is

544
00:34:31.800 --> 00:34:37.519
this one form of sort of micro
emancipation outside of it? I don't know,

545
00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:40.840
it's you're still that's really I don't
have an answer really unfortunately that I

546
00:34:40.840 --> 00:34:45.360
don't know, if you know,
I also know that middle tech is going

547
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:49.719
to be replaced. It's not going
to stay forever. And I think middle

548
00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:57.079
tech will be subsumed by these different
challenges and of you know, different experiences.

549
00:34:57.119 --> 00:35:00.679
I think even in an example,
not that I've studied Twitter or X,

550
00:35:00.039 --> 00:35:02.920
but another example when like you know, Elon Musk comes in and like

551
00:35:04.039 --> 00:35:08.719
swoops in and kind of fires hundreds
and hundreds of tech workers. That's a

552
00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:13.800
total example of like, wait,
why is Twitter still working or why is

553
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:16.480
X still working after all these hundreds
of workers were fired. Well, it

554
00:35:16.519 --> 00:35:21.920
has a lot too with like time
and ways in which season engineers were embedded,

555
00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:23.840
and of course a good enough culture. I think that comes out in

556
00:35:24.360 --> 00:35:29.519
different companies and it doesn't have to
just be a medium sized company in Berlin.

557
00:35:29.639 --> 00:35:31.960
There's also good enough culture exists,
as I also write at the Google's,

558
00:35:32.000 --> 00:35:35.679
at the Facebook's, at the Ex's, et cetera. But then there

559
00:35:35.679 --> 00:35:37.719
are the Elon Musk to come in, like what were these people doing out

560
00:35:37.719 --> 00:35:40.880
with them? Right? So,
and I think that it could be it

561
00:35:40.920 --> 00:35:45.760
will middletech be either bought out by
another company. Yeah, and then yeah,

562
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:50.840
somehow and we see also this is
also another maybe looking at the future.

563
00:35:51.519 --> 00:35:57.960
My next project is on how engineers
are dealing with different tools AI tools

564
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:01.920
like CHATSBT but also like co pilot, et cetera, and these are or

565
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:06.639
so this is going to be a
huge wave but already starting to really affect

566
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:10.719
how engineers do their work and how
software engineers organized. So there'll be a

567
00:36:10.760 --> 00:36:16.119
lot of redundancies. People will be
fired because you know, the AI can

568
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:20.239
do their job. So that also
is going to be tricky of how good

569
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:25.679
enoughness will be challenged and stabilized through
the like kind of yeah production. I've

570
00:36:25.679 --> 00:36:29.119
even been hired to try or tried
that. Someone tried to hire me.

571
00:36:29.400 --> 00:36:30.840
This is so funny. They didn't
read my book. They like wrote me

572
00:36:30.880 --> 00:36:34.480
an email Adam last week. That
was so funny. They were like,

573
00:36:34.960 --> 00:36:37.760
Hi, we're from a large software
coming I'm not going to say their name,

574
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:42.199
and we would love it if you
could do some work on how to

575
00:36:42.360 --> 00:36:46.239
up the efficiency of our workers given
chatt I mean they read they read like

576
00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:49.800
that idea some work on AI,
and they're like, because we could we

577
00:36:49.840 --> 00:36:53.519
heard that AI can like really up
the efficiency of our software production. And

578
00:36:53.559 --> 00:36:57.039
I was like, man, did
you not read my book? I guess

579
00:36:57.039 --> 00:37:00.679
you did it. Yeah exactly.
Anyways, Yeah, well congratulations on getting

580
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:04.599
I get pitched pitched for work.
But that is a that's a that's a

581
00:37:04.599 --> 00:37:07.639
funny point that we're like, uh, you missed the entire human side of

582
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:10.679
the work. Yeah, I'm not
going to help you be more efficient.

583
00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:14.519
No, I want you to be
good enough. Yeah, you know.

584
00:37:14.599 --> 00:37:17.320
Yeah, but I think that that's
that's a really interesting point because and I

585
00:37:17.320 --> 00:37:21.159
I was curious, and I mean
I am curious about like that, because

586
00:37:21.239 --> 00:37:24.239
I know, because you're you're doing
this research eighteen you know. And but

587
00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:29.159
obviously like AI is now yeah,
mainstream, like you know, Gethub has

588
00:37:29.199 --> 00:37:31.760
their co pilot like you mentioned,
Microsoft also ironically has titled co pilot.

589
00:37:31.800 --> 00:37:36.519
Yeah, lazy titling guys. I
wanted code pilot. I always thought it

590
00:37:36.559 --> 00:37:39.079
was going to be good, right, code pilot, Like, come on,

591
00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:42.239
guys, put on words. And
I thought, really, gosh,

592
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:45.559
okay, yeah, where's the developer
puny. Yeah that's a great point.

593
00:37:45.079 --> 00:37:49.079
Yes, sorry, but these things, yes, you're right, No,

594
00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:51.760
not at all, but like that, like how that also adds to like

595
00:37:51.800 --> 00:37:53.480
the challenge of redundancies of a kind
of work, you know, but then

596
00:37:53.559 --> 00:37:58.320
shifting the nature of work itself.
And I do think that's a that's a

597
00:37:58.360 --> 00:38:01.400
fundamentally important question. Yeah, because
it's it's you know, I've been thinking

598
00:38:01.400 --> 00:38:07.440
about this too, because it's like
the first at least consumer side applications of

599
00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:13.039
of AI, you know, came
I think for like the the kind of

600
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:15.920
weird areas, right, Like it
helps with creative writing, it helps with

601
00:38:15.960 --> 00:38:19.320
image generation, it can do music
stuff, and it can do coding.

602
00:38:19.760 --> 00:38:23.360
And it's like, why are we
targeting like not on purpose, not you

603
00:38:23.400 --> 00:38:30.119
know, consumer facing things that are
like creative enterprises versus like let's automate traffic

604
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:31.800
stops to be more efficient. You
know. It's like this interesting idea of

605
00:38:31.840 --> 00:38:36.960
like what what the consumer uses of
AI were like pitched towards you know,

606
00:38:37.159 --> 00:38:39.119
versus like actually we talked about it's
going to help remove drudgery. It's like,

607
00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.280
I mean, all of us,
who probably you know, many of

608
00:38:42.360 --> 00:38:45.599
us have used some sort of generative
AI to like either help us put a

609
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:49.559
paragraph together or correct as sentence versus
few ideas, and then like everything comes

610
00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:53.400
out like I would say, yeah, mediocre, definitely, definitely, you

611
00:38:53.440 --> 00:38:57.000
know, because it's the hours of
the internet, so it's like it's not

612
00:38:57.039 --> 00:38:59.400
not going to be great. But
like, so, yeah, I guess

613
00:38:59.519 --> 00:39:02.079
I'm curious like your thoughts on this
too, both as a musician and as

614
00:39:02.079 --> 00:39:05.199
as a researcher. It's like,
isn't that it's curious to me, like

615
00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:08.400
what the what the consumer applications are
or the enterprise applications because it's also this

616
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:13.079
is like how do we help improve
efficiency across like the development of pipeline And

617
00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:17.239
it's like it's funny because it's like
a technological solution to to something that's a

618
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:22.119
social problem. Yeah, and actually
you do say that, you say this

619
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:23.800
summerre too, like that's part of
the part of the point of your work

620
00:39:23.840 --> 00:39:27.599
is to help us be like we
stopped try. We can't be using new

621
00:39:27.639 --> 00:39:30.519
technology to solve old technology problems because
they don't do that. Yeah, that's

622
00:39:30.519 --> 00:39:32.599
not that's not how these work,
especially when they're they're social problems. So

623
00:39:35.599 --> 00:39:37.920
what does that bring up? Gosh, yeah, it's hard to say.

624
00:39:37.920 --> 00:39:45.239
And also why these creative realms are
being tackled, Like I think that I

625
00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:49.559
don't know, maybe this is just
me thinking that this is like non creative

626
00:39:49.559 --> 00:39:54.199
people trying to try to capture forms
of creativity and like hone them for themselves

627
00:39:54.239 --> 00:39:59.039
so that they can be creative maybe
because and once you see, like engineers,

628
00:39:59.079 --> 00:40:00.119
once I did, I did a
little pilot study and I looked at

629
00:40:00.159 --> 00:40:05.840
how engineers are using copilot and which
is for those who don't know, like

630
00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:08.800
the AI owned by Microsoft on one
of the main AI tools, encoding,

631
00:40:09.320 --> 00:40:15.400
and it really was in the non
it's always in the non creative moments are

632
00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:20.239
the very like let's even not call
them non creative, like the very mundane

633
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:24.360
and very mechanical things that that actually
it's good at. But the creativity of

634
00:40:24.400 --> 00:40:31.280
really like fully like designing something well
or trying to understand how to refactor a

635
00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:37.679
whole section of your whatever your piece
of software that you're building, you kind

636
00:40:37.760 --> 00:40:42.119
of have to like be a bit
yeah, you have to be a bit

637
00:40:42.519 --> 00:40:46.239
creative, and you have to There
is a human aspect that's about planning,

638
00:40:46.480 --> 00:40:52.159
right about trying to figure out how
the repercussion of what you're building will look

639
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:55.719
like in the future and look at
all sorts of different contingencies that an AI

640
00:40:55.840 --> 00:41:00.039
sometimes doesn't at ye at least yet
doesn't understand how to do that. And

641
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:04.880
it's a little bit with also music
when you come to understand when you start

642
00:41:04.920 --> 00:41:09.039
listening to AI generated music. I
find musicians do see the difference. A

643
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:12.880
lot of non musicians kind of are
like, ah, no, I don't.

644
00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:15.480
I don't see the difference to this. But I think in a long

645
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:20.599
run, the sort of the way
in which music stays with you and the

646
00:41:20.639 --> 00:41:23.800
way in which it becomes part of
your sort of soul and you sing the

647
00:41:23.920 --> 00:41:28.920
lyric and you you know you want
it to be with you for a long,

648
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:30.559
long pot time. When you when
you hear a good, good piece

649
00:41:30.559 --> 00:41:36.079
of music that you really like,
then that has to be created by somebody

650
00:41:36.079 --> 00:41:38.920
that touches you some way, I
think. So I feel more that when

651
00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:44.000
stuff needs to stay for a longer
period of time and be there with us

652
00:41:44.079 --> 00:41:47.519
and kind of touch us in some
way. That could also be robust software

653
00:41:47.559 --> 00:41:52.360
that makes sense for all sorts of
systems and whatever, all sorts of hardware

654
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:58.320
and whatever it is you're building.
You have to have a way on which

655
00:41:58.360 --> 00:42:01.480
you can plan that and understand its
longevity. Does that make any sense?

656
00:42:01.519 --> 00:42:07.199
So I would say that like that
ability to like make something stay is not

657
00:42:07.679 --> 00:42:12.960
really yet there with AI and I
don't think it could be. Yeah,

658
00:42:13.000 --> 00:42:15.559
I don't know if that madey sense. Yeah, I love. I mean

659
00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:17.840
it's it's like it speaks a bit
to the idea of stickiness, what's going

660
00:42:17.880 --> 00:42:22.400
to make something stay. There's actually
there's a quote I want to read from

661
00:42:22.440 --> 00:42:25.440
your book, Oh to get to
as part of that fancies having, because

662
00:42:25.440 --> 00:42:29.079
it really stood out to me because
it's it like speaks to these and it

663
00:42:29.519 --> 00:42:31.199
actually this is the now it was
in my head because this is where it

664
00:42:31.239 --> 00:42:35.400
has the idea of like new and
old technology, but it speaks to a

665
00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:37.239
lot of the ideas that we've been
talking about so far. That and this

666
00:42:37.320 --> 00:42:43.159
comes like right right before you're afterward
and basically you know, you say so.

667
00:42:43.280 --> 00:42:45.159
While our past was rooted in expansion, in the demand for bigger,

668
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:47.960
better, and greater, it is
my hope that the skills and tactics of

669
00:42:49.000 --> 00:42:53.079
good enoughness will be necessary to build
a livable future. Resistance to narratives capitalism

670
00:42:53.159 --> 00:42:58.239
can include care, compromise, balance, safety, contentment, and collegiality.

671
00:42:58.599 --> 00:43:01.199
And knowing how to be good enough
give us the skill to maintain our infrastructures

672
00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:05.719
and keep them running and stable.
Accepting a good enough work culture can be

673
00:43:05.760 --> 00:43:09.760
productive as it leaves time for the
realignment of power relations, the reconfiguration of

674
00:43:09.760 --> 00:43:14.280
what is important at a given moment. And you know, while while I

675
00:43:14.280 --> 00:43:16.760
aim to illustrate the overarching need for
managers, workers and software users to accept

676
00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:22.079
the inherent bugginess and lethargy of working
in technical systems, it's really my hope

677
00:43:22.199 --> 00:43:24.719
to get us out of the mindset
that traps us into thinking that new technology

678
00:43:24.920 --> 00:43:28.880
will save us from the old one, and doing so it can help us

679
00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:32.679
embrace endurance over newness and maintenance over
repair over quick innovation, and prepare us

680
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:37.480
for a highly adversarial world that is
to come. A ton of good stuff

681
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:43.280
in there. So thank you because
that encapsulated thinks such such the import of

682
00:43:43.280 --> 00:43:45.239
this work and so something else you're
saying that there's the stickiness from the AI

683
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:50.480
that's not quite there, but also
this idea of like we're we're so obsessed

684
00:43:50.519 --> 00:43:53.440
by the shiny object that like we
we are roads or crumbling. Yeah,

685
00:43:53.480 --> 00:43:57.159
you know, it's like we don't
actually think there's no value, don't We

686
00:43:57.159 --> 00:44:00.039
don't place sexiness on maintenance and endurance, but like that's really what makes the

687
00:44:00.079 --> 00:44:04.119
world work. Yes, definitely,
I can go to work, yes,

688
00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:07.320
to invent the new thing exactly.
Yeah, definitely. I think I don't

689
00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:09.719
know if I could add anything that
I think that was. I tried to.

690
00:44:09.960 --> 00:44:13.880
It's one of my last sentences was
that, like the last the last

691
00:44:13.880 --> 00:44:15.760
part of my right before the afterwards. It's it's, it's it towards the

692
00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:19.840
end. Yeah, so I really
tried to like craft this, you know,

693
00:44:20.079 --> 00:44:23.519
this conclusion, conclusions of the conclusion, and yeah, I think I

694
00:44:23.559 --> 00:44:27.920
can't. I don't know how to
add to that basically because which is good.

695
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:30.159
Well, I wrote that. That's
nice when you read to me like,

696
00:44:30.199 --> 00:44:34.960
oh that's cool. Actually, maybe
I'll ringe in five years, but

697
00:44:35.000 --> 00:44:37.960
I'm still not cringing. I guess
I hope not. No, I mean

698
00:44:37.239 --> 00:44:39.599
no, because I think I was
beautifully written and like that's I mean,

699
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:42.360
it stuck out it up that I
wanted to. I wanted to read it

700
00:44:43.199 --> 00:44:45.760
because I think there's there's so much
here in terms of like to our point

701
00:44:45.840 --> 00:44:51.400
we're talking about, there is this
dialogue between care versus speed. Right,

702
00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:54.000
you're like working versus care and like
that that's the Nancy Fraser moment that you

703
00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:58.840
mentioned before, the tension between those
ideas. But then also I like this

704
00:44:58.920 --> 00:45:00.840
idea that good enough this because we've
been talking a lot about it, how

705
00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:04.760
it's like it feels little, it
feels a little cringey to the software developers

706
00:45:04.920 --> 00:45:07.719
or managers. But here you're kind
of saying it's actually a skill, you

707
00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:10.880
know, work environment to think about
like and how we think about operating and

708
00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:15.639
setting up our world. And you
know, you point out again here the

709
00:45:15.719 --> 00:45:19.360
value of that is that because it
access helps us think about things like endurance,

710
00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:22.440
maintenance and keeping things going right yes, versus just like what's next,

711
00:45:22.440 --> 00:45:25.239
what's new? Yes? And AI
I think has that exact problem, right,

712
00:45:25.239 --> 00:45:28.719
It's always about what's next and what's
new, and not like let's make

713
00:45:29.119 --> 00:45:31.559
sure things actually work. That's true, that's interesting. I would be another

714
00:45:31.639 --> 00:45:37.280
people who are interested in this area. You could look into Andy Russell's and

715
00:45:37.440 --> 00:45:40.280
leave Vinzel's work on maintenance and repair. There's this like group of people called

716
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:45.239
them maintainers. That's a kind of
a network of Yeah, I don't know

717
00:45:45.280 --> 00:45:47.519
what you've probably had experience, did
you, Yeah, the maintainers, and

718
00:45:47.559 --> 00:45:53.800
they're like researchers and advocates for people
that care about a whale well maintained world.

719
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:58.119
I guess that's their like mission statement. So it's cool you could look

720
00:45:58.159 --> 00:46:01.239
out their their work, and I
think that there are a lot of people

721
00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:05.559
just really trying to put our focus
away from the shiny and new. You

722
00:46:05.559 --> 00:46:09.880
can look about like the deep growth
movement and sustainability studies and like just trying

723
00:46:09.920 --> 00:46:15.519
to Yeah, it's it is quite
hopefully about sustainability is really this idea,

724
00:46:15.559 --> 00:46:22.039
although good enoughness can come off as
like sloppiness too. That's another And that's

725
00:46:22.039 --> 00:46:27.320
the thing that I haven't really I
guess I haven't really I see that there's

726
00:46:27.480 --> 00:46:30.159
there's a problem in that notion,
and I still haven't figured it out because

727
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:35.280
on one hand, it's about care
and about maintenance. But it's when I

728
00:46:35.280 --> 00:46:37.519
talk about it sometimes about compromise,
right, saying like I can't care enough

729
00:46:37.559 --> 00:46:39.960
about this anymore. I have to
go right, I need to compromise on

730
00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:44.719
the quality of this because I have
to do something else. So the well

731
00:46:44.800 --> 00:46:49.800
maintained well maintenance also about slowness and
slowing down. And sometimes good enoughness is

732
00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:55.519
about moving fast, But it's not
about moving fast because you want to like

733
00:46:55.639 --> 00:47:00.039
build the newest, shiniest app It's
like really about made moving fast because you

734
00:47:00.079 --> 00:47:04.719
don't fully have time to care about
this. You have to care about something

735
00:47:04.719 --> 00:47:07.679
else, and that could be about
your own well being. You're being of

736
00:47:07.920 --> 00:47:12.679
good friend, doing a big good
mother, being a good boyfriend, whatever

737
00:47:12.719 --> 00:47:15.800
it is that you want to also
care about, you see what I mean.

738
00:47:15.880 --> 00:47:19.199
So it's about like, yeah,
that shift that we're constantly doing.

739
00:47:19.239 --> 00:47:22.039
That's not only about work. We
are a multiple of things, right,

740
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:25.039
So yeah, anyways, so I
hope that that kind of makes sense.

741
00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:29.760
Yeah, well totally. I mean
it's like it encapsulates that idea that like,

742
00:47:30.079 --> 00:47:34.320
you know, the original use of
the word economics like Greek or costs

743
00:47:34.400 --> 00:47:37.840
is actually for managing one's home,
right, And so it's like reminds us

744
00:47:37.880 --> 00:47:42.239
that work is like it's the work
life balance, you know, fake idea,

745
00:47:42.320 --> 00:47:44.400
right that like they're somehow separate,
and it's like, no, we

746
00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:46.239
have to always manage all of them, yes, and life of course.

747
00:47:46.719 --> 00:47:49.960
Yeah. So I think that that's
a great point too, where it's like,

748
00:47:50.599 --> 00:47:52.239
so it's also a good question that
you raised there too. So if

749
00:47:52.360 --> 00:47:55.079
listeners watchers, if anything jumps to
your mind in terms of this idea of

750
00:47:55.119 --> 00:47:59.960
like is there attention or challenge with
this idea that good enoughness also feels slow.

751
00:48:00.519 --> 00:48:02.400
How do we think about that?
Right, because I think you're you're

752
00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:06.280
right where it's like it can be
moving quickly, it can be moving slowly.

753
00:48:06.280 --> 00:48:07.960
It can be moving with care for
one thing or with care for a

754
00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:10.079
lot of things. And that then, like you know, and depending on

755
00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:12.679
how you're looking at it, right, that could feel sloppy, but you

756
00:48:12.679 --> 00:48:15.440
can also feel like super efficient depending
on you know. So it's like it

757
00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:19.679
is about a point of view too, I think in terms of both an

758
00:48:19.719 --> 00:48:23.079
intent of what's one trying to accomplish
and also you know, what does someone

759
00:48:23.079 --> 00:48:27.719
else seeing said person trying to accomplish, you know, in that moment.

760
00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:30.239
So I think there's it's always a
three D moving piece, right, It's

761
00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:35.280
like always going to be kind of
you know, one person's one person sloppy

762
00:48:35.320 --> 00:48:37.880
is another person's efficiency. But I
hear you in terms of like, is

763
00:48:37.880 --> 00:48:42.960
there is there a way to talk
about what's happening here that captures like but

764
00:48:43.159 --> 00:48:45.119
the that still also feels good because
it seems like good enough. As people

765
00:48:45.159 --> 00:48:46.880
have we have to like get to
the point of saying, oh it is

766
00:48:47.000 --> 00:48:50.960
a good enough sexually okay, good
enough is good because you feel like it's

767
00:48:51.000 --> 00:48:52.599
like that. So there's an interesting, interesting tension there. Yeah, exactly

768
00:48:52.599 --> 00:48:55.679
of what that is. Because you're
right, because overall is actually a positive

769
00:48:55.719 --> 00:49:00.119
thing. Yes, but for a
lot of people it's and yeah, and

770
00:49:00.159 --> 00:49:02.320
a lot of people it's not positive. It's not enough. You know this,

771
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:06.199
this tent should between the term good
good, the word good and the

772
00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:09.199
good word enough, and it's constantly
isn't enough. No, it's not enough

773
00:49:09.239 --> 00:49:12.199
for some people. It is enough
for me, it's good enough. For

774
00:49:12.280 --> 00:49:15.320
others it's not enough. You know. This is funny, Yeah, and

775
00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:19.239
it's yeah, I don't have an
answer that I think you're We're constantly going

776
00:49:19.320 --> 00:49:24.239
to be like jumping between unless we
like, yeah, anythink really slowed slowed

777
00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:28.599
down? Maybe I don't know,
or really I don't know. I don't

778
00:49:28.599 --> 00:49:32.039
have I think this is like moves
into also like sort of self help territory.

779
00:49:32.119 --> 00:49:36.960
And Abram Albert wrote a book also
called good Enough that's more about like

780
00:49:37.039 --> 00:49:39.639
the good enough term and from as
a philosopher. He wrote a book.

781
00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:44.920
It's also out with Princeton University Press. So I also recommend checking that out

782
00:49:45.079 --> 00:49:49.800
if you're interested in the term good
enough in our life as a sort of

783
00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:52.400
philosophy and as yeah, so it's
not an ethnography, it's not he's not

784
00:49:52.400 --> 00:49:58.199
an anthropology, but also maybe worth
checking out totally. Yeah, we're okay

785
00:49:58.239 --> 00:50:05.400
with all sorts of thinkers on this
other shoe good. It's I've trained more

786
00:50:05.400 --> 00:50:07.519
in sociology, So am I really
through? I don't know, but yeah,

787
00:50:07.639 --> 00:50:13.199
my partner's an anthropologists and he he
told me that there's it's a joke

788
00:50:13.239 --> 00:50:15.239
if you spend like two weeks in
a field. So I really learned the

789
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:21.199
beauty of very long term field work
where you kind of very much fueled your

790
00:50:21.239 --> 00:50:24.880
whole body within the field. And
I really found my hat to like all

791
00:50:24.920 --> 00:50:30.559
anthropologists who who spend a long time
in the field. Oh yeah, I

792
00:50:30.559 --> 00:50:34.559
mean it's funny because I will say
on the flip side that like, I

793
00:50:34.559 --> 00:50:36.960
both like that, but also I
really value people that are able to do

794
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:39.480
Rabbi ethnography and like they're able to
do it quickly because it's like because we

795
00:50:39.840 --> 00:50:43.480
the work demands, like they both
are valuable and they both we both have

796
00:50:43.559 --> 00:50:45.199
we have to do both, right, Yeah, that's true, that's true.

797
00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:49.000
And some people, yeah, some
anthropologis can't say okay, this is

798
00:50:49.000 --> 00:50:52.599
good enough. They keep going,
but I think, yeah, yeah,

799
00:50:52.719 --> 00:50:58.800
it's true, so true that there's
something for one to each your own and

800
00:50:58.840 --> 00:51:01.000
one has a purpose in the other
as well, and the one can uncover

801
00:51:01.400 --> 00:51:05.800
a lot that others can't. So
that's also interesting too. Yeah for sure,

802
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:07.880
no, hey, holdism, it
all works together, you know,

803
00:51:07.920 --> 00:51:13.079
it's like, yeah, I mean
I would say fifty percent of the time

804
00:51:13.079 --> 00:51:15.239
on the show, I'm not only
the anthropologist, and that that's on purpose.

805
00:51:15.239 --> 00:51:17.159
Actually this is like, so it's
because the point is like, how

806
00:51:17.159 --> 00:51:20.880
do we get how do we get
other thought leaders and folks interested in social

807
00:51:20.920 --> 00:51:28.039
sciences, and so that's so anthropologists
of social scientists, like sometimes I guess

808
00:51:28.039 --> 00:51:34.199
sometimes I have the after life is
your anthro life? Sometimes Adams your Yeah,

809
00:51:34.480 --> 00:51:38.360
Adam's cash, she has a title. I guess Adam's after life Adam

810
00:51:39.239 --> 00:51:44.199
nice? Exactly Cool. Cool,
I mean that's there's there's always more.

811
00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:47.239
You know that too. Yeah,
it's work, who knows, but cool.

812
00:51:47.280 --> 00:51:51.199
Paula, this has been a great
conversation. I really appreciate you hopping

813
00:51:51.239 --> 00:51:53.599
on and I'm excited to get the
book into the the eyes and ears of

814
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:57.440
audience members. So we'll have a
link to it in the show. Notes

815
00:51:58.400 --> 00:52:01.000
and yeah, so I'm excited to
see what you'll come up with, obviously

816
00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:04.840
in the AI space after this and
see how that goes. It's kind of

817
00:52:04.840 --> 00:52:07.599
scary, but I think interesting.
No, it was really nice talking to

818
00:52:07.639 --> 00:52:10.400
you, and you're such a great
listener and I really like listening your podcast

819
00:52:10.400 --> 00:52:14.960
because you really read our books,
which is crazy and a lot of people

820
00:52:14.960 --> 00:52:17.400
don't do that. And it's really
a pleasure to be here. Thank you

821
00:52:17.400 --> 00:52:22.119
so much. Awesome cool. Well, many thanks and we'll we'll see ye,

822
00:52:22.360 --> 00:52:24.719
take care, happy reading. Let's
a wrap on today's discussion with Paula

823
00:52:24.719 --> 00:52:29.000
Biowski on the nuances of good enough
and software development and beyond. Thanks so

824
00:52:29.079 --> 00:52:31.199
much for joining me on the podcast
today, paul I've really enjoyed the conversation

825
00:52:31.239 --> 00:52:36.360
with you. Yeah, we journeyed
through the complexities of maintaining balance, care,

826
00:52:36.519 --> 00:52:39.599
and compromise in the fast paced world
of technology and development. This conversation

827
00:52:39.639 --> 00:52:44.880
not only sheds light on the tangible
aspects of coding culture and workplace dynamics,

828
00:52:45.079 --> 00:52:49.239
but also invites us to rethink our
relationship with a never ending pursuit of excellence.

829
00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:52.199
As we close this episode, let's
carry forward the idea that sometimes being

830
00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:57.400
good enough doesn't signify mediocrity, but
a mindful acknowledgment of our limits and priorities,

831
00:52:57.519 --> 00:53:00.559
both in our professional and personal lives. So thank you for tuning in

832
00:53:00.639 --> 00:53:04.920
out. This has sparks of reflections
on how we can navigate these demands of

833
00:53:04.960 --> 00:53:07.199
our increasingly digital world. Stay curious
and we'll see you in the next episode.

834
00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:09.800
I'm Adam Getwell and you're watching this
Anthra Life.