What Is Your Ultimate Goal?

  • Sun, Feb 2, 2025
  • 2-minute read

First thing I usually ask about new ideas is “What is the ultimate goal?” repharasing this question for a paticular case. The “ultimate goal” in my understanding is a clear defenition of the benefits.

The original reason I started to ask the questions about “the ultimate goal” was trivial - I wanted to cut all the bullshit when I talk to a client or potential employer. Especially when someone has a “great idea”. The skills to sell the ideas are important, but if the product doesn’t have clear goals it is eventually reduced to useless gimics.

I mean, my OS looks like a spaceship, but I still use command line and a text editor and it covers 80% of my needs. If I were a regular office worker I believe Excel would cover the same amount. Most of the software currently produced is bloated with useless features, needless UI, intentional complexity, bugs.. We have a term for it - “software inshitification”. That’s not a big problem by itself. The problem is that this is a path a lot of companies take, so the resources go to fuel this trend.

So what kind of answers I avoid when asking about the “ultimate goals”?

  1. I avoid “futurology” gimics - If the idea looks like a spaceship but won’t fly, then it is not a spaceship 🧠⚡️
  2. I avoid useless or re-framed applications - If the idea looks like AI but all it does is selling products through a chat-gpt, then it’s a shop with extra-steps.
  3. I avoid synthetic complexity - When the idea is to glue a rocket engine to a skateboard. Fun challenge, requires bright minds to make it work, but I’ll probably pass.
  4. I avoid “fast money” - When the idea is to sell an idea to someone.

These are the rules I started to follow when I ask myself or anybody this question. I wish I started to do so 15 years ago. I think most of my fellow engineers were more happy with their work if they asked this question to themselves and the employers.

What is the ultimate goal of this post? - I wish more people asked what is the goal of their endevours. Maybe then we’d have less burned out people.

Peace ✌️

thoughts