Second System Syndrome is a business ailment first diagnosed by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. in his classic 1975 book The Mythical Man-Month. “An architect’s first work is apt to be spare and clean,” Brooks wrote. “He knows he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he does it carefully and with great restraint.” But once the first system is done, the architect becomes overconfident, unaware of how much he still doesn’t know. The second system is usually overengineered, full of unnecessary “frills and embellishments” – in short, a mess.
It is, Brooks wrote, “the most dangerous system a man ever designs.”Many of the architects of the Internet Economy exhibit acute symptoms of Second System Syndrome. Worse, they seem to suffer from a particularly virulent strain. They are so eager to start building the second system – or product or company or fund – that they never get the first one working. While they are off trying to repeat their “success” and teach others how to do it, the first project languishes, misfires and runs out of gas.
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