The Long Now of Progress
Why the most meaningful work often outlives us
Welcome to Frank Takeaways. I'm Frank, writing the notes worth keeping from decades at companies like Slack, Etsy, and Google. I run a coaching practice dedicated to guiding leaders through the tricky stuff of building products and high-performing teams.
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Some of the most important work you'll ever do won't be recognized in your tenure. In fact, its full impact might not be realized until long after you've left. What if the progress you fight for today is only fully realized by people you'll never meet?
"We can do better than 91 percent, but 91 percent is not a failure. It's progress," Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said. "And government is about the increments by which you move toward goals you desire."
If you've worked with me for any length of time, chances are you've heard me say it. At least once, probably multiple times. I don’t need much — just the smallest of openings — and I will wax about my favorite quote. It still sits with me.
At first glance, it feels like a clever re-framing of "don’t let perfect be the enemy of good" — that familiar startup wisdom about shipping early and iterating. And it is, but it also isn't. Moynihan said this on Meet The Press in the summer of 1994, suggesting universal healthcare coverage might take a decade to achieve. If only he knew — we're now thirty years past that moment, and that 91% still feels aspirational.
This essay isn’t about politics or policy, nor was his quote just about healthcare. It’s about how we understand time and progress itself. When we say "don't let perfect be the enemy of good," we usually think in quarters or product cycles. “We’ll get to it in the next release.” We assume perfection is still coming — just not in version 1.0. The hubris.
But some problems can’t be solved within a single tenure or even career. Some progress takes generations. If moving toward the goals we desire requires not just accepting imperfection now but accepting that perfection might unfold beyond our horizon — what does that mean for the way we work?
There’s something noble and heartbreaking in that understanding. In knowing that the progress you're pushing for today might only be fully realized by others, long after you're gone. That’s what makes Moynihan’s words more than just practical advice — they're a meditation on how change actually happens in human systems, and what it means to be part of the long arc of progress.
If this is true for something as monumental as national policy, how much more so for the systems we build in technology?
The Art of Incrementalism
The irony is that Moynihan's incremental approach aligned with Clinton's own governing philosophy. But the Clinton plan had a fatal flaw: every piece depended on every other piece. Cost controls had to work for access to work. Coverage mandates had to work for pricing to work. The architects insisted the plan couldn't be broken into parts without collapsing.
As Harold Ickes, then deputy chief of staff, later reflected: while this all-or-nothing design made intellectual sense, it was politically impossible. Their refusal to allow any piece to stand alone ultimately killed the entire effort.
This isn't just a political reality. Whether in policy or product, systems thinking demands patience. And yet, in tech, we rarely talk about patience as a core competency.
Craft is a Long Game
I see this tension play out constantly in my work. While tech worships speed — "10x engineers," "move fast and break things" — the most transformative work often unfolds slowly, quietly, with little fanfare.
I think of the engineering lead who spent years building an experimentation culture, knowing its impact would outlive his tenure. The product manager who championed accessibility features that would never show in quarterly metrics. The designer who refused shortcuts while building our design system, understanding future teams would build on those foundations.
The irony? True craft — the patient dedication to doing things deliberately — is itself a long game. Like a master carpenter's joints that hold for centuries, these practitioners know excellence compounds over time. Their impact lives not in sprints, but in the standards they set and foundations they lay.
Yet this long-term mindset must dance with quarterly pressures and the very real need to ship. The art isn't choosing between craft and speed — it's serving both masters.
To be more blunt: the future doesn't matter if the present isn't successful. And yet, the present won't last if we sacrifice the future. So how do we work within the long now? Here are four principles I’ve found useful:
Design for independence. Build systems that can improve piece by piece. When everything depends on everything else, nothing can move forward without moving everything. Make it possible for parts to evolve independently while still working together. Progress favors the modular.
Build for evolution, not perfection. The best systems aren’t perfect—they’re adaptable. They’re built with the humility of knowing future teams will need to change them, and the generosity of making that change possible. The road is long and probably longer than you think.
Honor the scaffolding. Some of our most important work is invisible: documentation of code but also learnings that prevent future confusion, cleanup that makes the next feature possible, foundations that others will build upon. Make these contributions visible. The artifacts of our work are also our work.
Make patience a practice. Help your team see beyond the current sprint. Share stories of how past incremental improvements led to unexpected breakthroughs. Make space for both quick wins and slow transformations. One builds momentum to the next.
The Power of Longer Stories
There's a paradox in how we talk about progress in tech. While we celebrate "overnight successes" and viral launches, the stories that truly inspire teams are often the longer ones — the multi-year journeys that show how persistent, thoughtful work compounds into something transformative. A hero's journey trumps overnight success.
Look, we all have egos. We want to believe our work matters and will survive us (hello, Cologne Cathedral). This isn't just vanity — it's about seeing our daily work as part of something bigger. Not just the next sprint, but the next chapter in a longer story.
This kind of storytelling does something powerful: it helps people understand that their "small" contributions matter precisely because they're part of a longer arc. There's something deeply motivating about knowing your work might outlast your tenure. As leaders, this is an important opportunity we need to genuinely lean into.
The Next Stone
Even in 2025, as we celebrate each new weekly AI breakthrough, the reality remains humble: these systems weren't built in singular moments of genius, but through thousands of incremental advances. Each researcher, each paper, each small improvement laid another stone in what would become our current AI cathedral. And we're still building — still seeking our own "91 percent moments" in crucial areas like safety and reliability.
The next time you're crafting change that feels too slow, too incremental, remember Moynihan's words. Maybe you won't get to 100% coverage, or a perfect experience, or complete accessibility. But if you can move from 85% to 91%, you've laid another stone in the cathedral and set a precedent for those who follow.
And in the long now of progress, every stone matters — especially the ones whose significance only time will reveal. What stone are you laying today?
“Their impact lives not in sprints, but in the standards they set and foundations they lay.” ❤️