CTO takeaway
The lesson, minus the scar tissue.
- Never confuse complexity with sophistication. A simple, working system beats a complex, broken one every time.
- When inheriting a codebase, don't be afraid to call a spade a spade. Two years of work doesn't mean two years of good work.
- Microservices are a tax, not a prize. Only pay it when you actually need the scale.
- The best way to convince leadership to rewrite is to show them how much faster they'll ship features. Talk in business terms, not tech terms.
- A 3-month rewrite is a gamble. But sometimes gambling on simplicity is safer than betting on a sinking ship.
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A comic, a story and a takeaway every other week. Written for founders who inherited a codebase they didn't choose.
