Snippet — on complexity

Intelligent people are uniquely vulnerable to mistaking complexity for insight.

An executive writes a ten-page memo that could be one. An engineer builds an intricate system when a simple one would perform better at half the cost. The consultant mesmerizes clients with frameworks that conceal rather than reveal. We attach prestige to what mystifies us. Complexity intoxicates the creator and the audience, drugging us with the illusion of wisdom.

Mastery isn’t making the simple complex—it’s finding the elegant simplicity that cuts through the complexity.