“Perfect is the enemy of the good.”
— Voltaire
It has become fashionable to deem perfection a dirty word. The argument goes, if you strive for perfection you’ll never ship anything. But like all platitudes, the truth is much more nuanced.
Move one rung down from perfection on the quality ladder and you find “good enough.” “Good enough” sets a quality bar, and a quality bar quickly becomes a quality ceiling. Over time, doing anything above the bar is considered “a waste of time.” It’s easy to see how this mindset spirals into mediocrity.
If you really want to do something great, aim to do it the best. Every time. Anything less, and the gravity of familiarity and compromise drag it into the realm of sameness.
Shooting for perfection has the funny consequence of causing you to continually improve each micro decision. Compromises that would typically be allowed, that drag an experience from stellar to average, are not tolerated. Everyone on the team is focused on doing their best work and can’t imagine letting the team down by giving anything less.
Perfection isn’t an end-state, but an ideal. An ideal that inspires continual improvement by posing the question, “How can this be better?” An ideal we believe is worth pursuing.
