Drowning in Information and Complexity? (Me Too!) 🌊
Drowning in Information and Complexity? (Me Too!) 🌊
Written by
Sterling Higa
4 min read
4 min read
4 min read
This may sound crazy, but I think it's true:
In the last 600 years, information has multiplied 1,000,000x.
Yes, one million times.
Think: Printing press ➜ telegraph ➜ telephone ➜ radio ➜ television ➜ internet ➜ smartphones.
In your pocket (or hand) is a smartphone.
It can access traditional media: print, radio, television.
It can access social media: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter.
And now–with generative AI (ChatGPT, Grok, Claude)–it can create infinite new content.
Ghiblify everything!
The Flood
James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood is a dense but wonderful read.
It traces how we’ve created, theorized, and tried to manage information over centuries.
His conclusion? There’s more information than ever—and our systems are overwhelmed.
We're not only drowning in information.
We're shaping it–and being shaped by it.
But Gleick published his book in 2012, a decade before the release of ChatGPT.
AI doesn't just mean more information.
It's a paradigm-shift in how we create and interpret information.
The future belongs to leaders who understand how to leverage AI to:
Shape noise into narrative.
Turn floods into frameworks.
Prompt with clarity.
Decide with courage.
Order the chaos.
Meanwhile, complexity at your local coffee shop ☕
Complexity is another word that's thrown around.
It's from the Latin "complexus," meaning to entwine, embrace, or interweave.
At its core, complexity means something woven together.
It's many parts intertwined in a way that can be hard to separate or fully understand.
Leaders sense that complexity has increased over time.
But how much?
By my estimates, complexity has multiplied at least 1,000x in the last 500 years.
Complexity isn't just a global phenomenon.
It shows up at your neighborhood coffee shop, too.
Take Arvo, an independent coffee shop at SALT in Kaka‘ako. Just how complex is it?
This sounds wild, but let's reason by comparison:
Arvo deals with more rules and red tape than the Dutch East India Company ever did.
Wait, what?
The Dutch East India Company charter is about 25 pages long.
That charter was enough to grant it sovereign power: to wage war, colonize nations, and monopolize trade from Africa to Asia.
Arvo? It can’t even deny a bathroom break without risking lawsuits.
It juggles labor laws, tax codes, ADA compliance, health inspections, and TikTok backlash—daily.
The Dutch East India Company ruled oceans. Arvo navigates an invisible empire of bureaucracy, software, and Yelp reviews.
And what's true for Arvo is true for other businesses, nonprofits, labor unions, government agencies, and churches.
The lesson? Legal and operational complexity have exploded.
Information, complexity, alignment
Drowning in information. Entangled in complexity.
In the newsletter, I break down why that makes alignment so hard—and what to do about it.
Curious? Sign up here.
Let’s order the chaos.
This may sound crazy, but I think it's true:
In the last 600 years, information has multiplied 1,000,000x.
Yes, one million times.
Think: Printing press ➜ telegraph ➜ telephone ➜ radio ➜ television ➜ internet ➜ smartphones.
In your pocket (or hand) is a smartphone.
It can access traditional media: print, radio, television.
It can access social media: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter.
And now–with generative AI (ChatGPT, Grok, Claude)–it can create infinite new content.
Ghiblify everything!
The Flood
James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood is a dense but wonderful read.
It traces how we’ve created, theorized, and tried to manage information over centuries.
His conclusion? There’s more information than ever—and our systems are overwhelmed.
We're not only drowning in information.
We're shaping it–and being shaped by it.
But Gleick published his book in 2012, a decade before the release of ChatGPT.
AI doesn't just mean more information.
It's a paradigm-shift in how we create and interpret information.
The future belongs to leaders who understand how to leverage AI to:
Shape noise into narrative.
Turn floods into frameworks.
Prompt with clarity.
Decide with courage.
Order the chaos.
Meanwhile, complexity at your local coffee shop ☕
Complexity is another word that's thrown around.
It's from the Latin "complexus," meaning to entwine, embrace, or interweave.
At its core, complexity means something woven together.
It's many parts intertwined in a way that can be hard to separate or fully understand.
Leaders sense that complexity has increased over time.
But how much?
By my estimates, complexity has multiplied at least 1,000x in the last 500 years.
Complexity isn't just a global phenomenon.
It shows up at your neighborhood coffee shop, too.
Take Arvo, an independent coffee shop at SALT in Kaka‘ako. Just how complex is it?
This sounds wild, but let's reason by comparison:
Arvo deals with more rules and red tape than the Dutch East India Company ever did.
Wait, what?
The Dutch East India Company charter is about 25 pages long.
That charter was enough to grant it sovereign power: to wage war, colonize nations, and monopolize trade from Africa to Asia.
Arvo? It can’t even deny a bathroom break without risking lawsuits.
It juggles labor laws, tax codes, ADA compliance, health inspections, and TikTok backlash—daily.
The Dutch East India Company ruled oceans. Arvo navigates an invisible empire of bureaucracy, software, and Yelp reviews.
And what's true for Arvo is true for other businesses, nonprofits, labor unions, government agencies, and churches.
The lesson? Legal and operational complexity have exploded.
Information, complexity, alignment
Drowning in information. Entangled in complexity.
In the newsletter, I break down why that makes alignment so hard—and what to do about it.
Curious? Sign up here.
Let’s order the chaos.
This may sound crazy, but I think it's true:
In the last 600 years, information has multiplied 1,000,000x.
Yes, one million times.
Think: Printing press ➜ telegraph ➜ telephone ➜ radio ➜ television ➜ internet ➜ smartphones.
In your pocket (or hand) is a smartphone.
It can access traditional media: print, radio, television.
It can access social media: Instagram, YouTube, Twitter.
And now–with generative AI (ChatGPT, Grok, Claude)–it can create infinite new content.
Ghiblify everything!
The Flood
James Gleick's The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood is a dense but wonderful read.
It traces how we’ve created, theorized, and tried to manage information over centuries.
His conclusion? There’s more information than ever—and our systems are overwhelmed.
We're not only drowning in information.
We're shaping it–and being shaped by it.
But Gleick published his book in 2012, a decade before the release of ChatGPT.
AI doesn't just mean more information.
It's a paradigm-shift in how we create and interpret information.
The future belongs to leaders who understand how to leverage AI to:
Shape noise into narrative.
Turn floods into frameworks.
Prompt with clarity.
Decide with courage.
Order the chaos.
Meanwhile, complexity at your local coffee shop ☕
Complexity is another word that's thrown around.
It's from the Latin "complexus," meaning to entwine, embrace, or interweave.
At its core, complexity means something woven together.
It's many parts intertwined in a way that can be hard to separate or fully understand.
Leaders sense that complexity has increased over time.
But how much?
By my estimates, complexity has multiplied at least 1,000x in the last 500 years.
Complexity isn't just a global phenomenon.
It shows up at your neighborhood coffee shop, too.
Take Arvo, an independent coffee shop at SALT in Kaka‘ako. Just how complex is it?
This sounds wild, but let's reason by comparison:
Arvo deals with more rules and red tape than the Dutch East India Company ever did.
Wait, what?
The Dutch East India Company charter is about 25 pages long.
That charter was enough to grant it sovereign power: to wage war, colonize nations, and monopolize trade from Africa to Asia.
Arvo? It can’t even deny a bathroom break without risking lawsuits.
It juggles labor laws, tax codes, ADA compliance, health inspections, and TikTok backlash—daily.
The Dutch East India Company ruled oceans. Arvo navigates an invisible empire of bureaucracy, software, and Yelp reviews.
And what's true for Arvo is true for other businesses, nonprofits, labor unions, government agencies, and churches.
The lesson? Legal and operational complexity have exploded.
Information, complexity, alignment
Drowning in information. Entangled in complexity.
In the newsletter, I break down why that makes alignment so hard—and what to do about it.
Curious? Sign up here.
Let’s order the chaos.
Let's talk story.
If you're building something ambitious and need a strategic partner, let’s see if our approach fits your moment.
Let's talk story.
If you're building something ambitious and need a strategic partner, let’s see if our approach fits your moment.
Let's talk story.
Tell me what you're building, where you're stuck, or what’s just beginning to take shape. If you're leading through complexity, this is your invitation.