One Tension to Rule Them All

The essay argues that efficiency and thoroughness should be managed as a tension rather than a trade-off, because in ongoing, infinite-game situations the choice is not a one-time decision that can be settled once. It cites Erik Hollnagel's ETTO Principle, which holds that an individual cannot be maximally efficient and thorough at once, and Tim Beiko's working definition that "a tension is a trade-off plus a conflict." Using Amazon as its case study, the essay says the 2002 API Mandate prioritized long-term scalability, which later enabled Amazon Web Services.