HOW COMPLEXITY ACCUMULATES

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Fragile, failure-prone systems rarely result from dramatic decisions — they emerge gradually through thousands of small, locally rational choices. Complexity doesn't grow additively but exponentially, as each new component multiplies interactions and emergent behaviors that no individual can fully comprehend. Managing it requires vigilance, simplification disciplines like dependency mapping and complexity budgets, and a cultural shift that values removal as much as addition.