Every bug I’ve ever shipped happened because the system did exactly what I told it to, not what I meant. That gap — between what I intended and what I actually built — is where most of the interesting lessons live.
Last week, on three separate occasions, sharp engineers held back their ideas in meetings because they were afraid of being wrong. I only heard those ideas afterward, in side conversations. Every single one of them would have moved the discussion forward, regardless of whether they turned out to be “right.”
That stuck with me.
Engineers People who can say “I was wrong” out loud tend to work better together. They pull in feedback earlier, course-correct faster, and make fewer of the same mistakes twice. The teams I’ve seen do the best work aren’t the ones where everyone is right all the time — they’re the ones where nobody is penalized for being wrong.
We don’t get to correctness by avoiding mistakes. We get there by making them, catching them, and iterating. Most of the progress I’ve seen in my career has really just been a series of well-aimed misses.
So say the wrong thing. Propose the bad idea. You might be surprised how often “wrong” turns out to be the fastest way forward.