The Lightcone Principles

habryka
11 Nov 2025 5:32 UTC

Every Sunday I write a mini-essay about an operating principle of Lightcone Infrastructure that I want to remind my team about. Here they are, edited and occasionally expanded upon in more canonical form.

Ques­tion the Requirements

habryka11 Nov 2025 5:25 UTC
90 points
12 comments3 min readLW link

Do not hand off what you can­not pick up

habryka12 Nov 2025 6:32 UTC
134 points
22 comments4 min readLW link

Two can keep a se­cret if one is dead. So please share ev­ery­thing with at least one per­son.

habryka13 Nov 2025 3:09 UTC
76 points
5 comments2 min readLW link

Tell peo­ple as early as pos­si­ble it’s not go­ing to work out

habryka14 Nov 2025 2:21 UTC
145 points
13 comments2 min readLW link

In­creas­ing re­turns to effort are common

habryka15 Nov 2025 6:53 UTC
89 points
6 comments7 min readLW link

Put num­bers on stuff, all the time, oth­er­wise scope in­sen­si­tivity will eat you

habryka16 Nov 2025 3:04 UTC
117 points
3 comments3 min readLW link

Close open loops

habryka17 Nov 2025 16:00 UTC
52 points
0 comments3 min readLW link

Aim for sin­gle piece flow

habryka18 Nov 2025 5:22 UTC
108 points
21 comments5 min readLW link

Au­to­mate, au­to­mate it all

habryka19 Nov 2025 7:08 UTC
66 points
0 comments5 min readLW link

Be Naughty

habryka22 Nov 2025 6:35 UTC
89 points
8 comments4 min readLW link