The smoke alarm is still chirping in the hallway and the smell of burnt rice is thick enough to chew. I let the pan sit in the sink with a layer of grey water over the black crust because I am too tired to scrub it right now.
The call ran long and the guy on the other end wanted to talk about scalability and he wanted to talk about future-proofing and he wanted to talk about a stack that could support a thousand users even though he only employs 14 people in a small office in Ohio. He wants the weight and he wants the heaviness of a massive contract because he thinks the heaviness makes his firm look like a giant and he thinks the complexity is a badge of honor.
He is wrong and he is also the reason I am eating a piece of cold toast for dinner instead of the risotto I planned. My kitchen is a mess and my head hurts and I am thinking about how we have reached a point where we judge a business by the size of its software bill instead of what it actually does.
The Optical Illusion of Enterprise Grade
We look at two companies and we see one with a lean setup and a small rack and we think they are just playing around. Then we see the other one with the enterprise-grade licenses and the layered security stacks and the redundant virtualization tiers and we nod our heads. We say that they are a serious business.
We do not ask if they are actually making money or if their users can actually get their work done without the system crashing under its own weight. We just look at the stack and we equate the mass with the substance and we move on. This is a trick of the mind and it is a very expensive one. It is like buying a freight train to deliver a single envelope across town and then feeling proud of the fuel bill.
I spent as a packaging frustration analyst and I saw this every day in the physical world. Companies would over-pack a small item in a box the size of a microwave and they would fill it with plastic air bags and they would use heavy-duty tape and they would do it because they wanted the customer to feel like they were getting something substantial.
They wanted the box to feel heavy and they wanted the unboxing to feel like a project. It did not matter that the item was a set of 12 screws or a single USB cable. The weight was the message. In the digital world we do the same thing with our server stacks and our licensing agreements. We pile on the layers because a thin stack looks fragile and we are terrified of being perceived as small.
The Simplicity of the Gate
This is how the process actually works when a user wants to do their job on a remote server. A person sits down at a desk and they open their laptop and they send a request to a Windows Server. The server does not care about the size of the company or the ego of the CEO. It just looks for a specific token that says this user is allowed to be here.
This token is the Client Access License and it is the simplest part of the whole machine. The licensing host checks its database and it sees a valid seat and it lets the user in and the connection is made. It takes less than and it requires zero extra layers of complexity. It is a handshake and a gate.
But instead of just buying the seats they need and moving on many managers want to buy the whole stadium. They want the enterprise agreement and they want the bundled suites and they want the recurring monthly fee that never ends. They think the 48-page PDF of their licensing terms is a sign that they have arrived in the big leagues.
I worked with a firm that had 28 employees and they were paying for 194 active licenses for various pieces of software they never touched. I asked the IT lead why they had so many and he told me that it made the audit process look better if they were over-prepared.
The financial cost of over-preparation: paying for infrastructure that never generates value.
He said that a heavy stack was a signal to their clients that they were a top-tier operation. He was literally buying weight. He was spending 11,430 dollars every quarter on signals. That is money that could have gone to raises or to a better office or to a kitchen that does not have a smoke alarm going off because someone was too busy explaining a bloated infrastructure to cook their dinner.
The Loop of Perpetual Management
The reality is that a lean business is usually a more capable business because it is not fighting its own tools. When you have a stack that is too heavy you spend all your time maintaining the stack. You hire more people to watch the software that is supposed to be helping the people you already have. You create a loop of management that produces nothing but more management.
A serious business is one that solves problems and makes a profit and stays out of its own way. A serious business is one that realizes a license is just a tool and not a trophy. The shift toward this mass-is-class mindset has created a culture of bloat.
IT departments feel pressure to present a complex map of their systems to the board because if the map is simple then the board might think the IT department is not doing enough. So they add a layer of containerization here and a layer of monitoring there and they buy a license for a tool that manages the other tools. It is a house built on top of a house on top of a house.
Reclaiming the Direct Path
When a team finally hits the wall and they realize that the complexity is killing their speed they start looking for a way out. They look for the things they actually need to run the business. They look for the direct path. They find that they can get the same results by just being correct instead of being elaborate.
They stop trying to signal seriousness and they start trying to be effective. This usually starts with the basics like getting their server licensing right without the extra fluff. When a team gets tired of the weight and they just want the tool to work they go to a place like the
and they buy what they need and nothing more.
They get the User CALs or the Device CALs and they get them delivered in and they move on with their lives. They do not get a 48-page PDF and they do not get a dedicated account manager who calls them once a week to sell them more things they do not want. They just get the gate opened so their people can work.
I finally got the smoke out of the kitchen and I opened the window to let the cold air in. The toast is dry and the butter will not melt because the bread is too cold but it is better than the burnt rice. I am looking at my laptop and I am thinking about that guy in Ohio.
He is probably still looking at a spreadsheet of enterprise tiers and he is probably feeling very proud of himself. He thinks he is building a fortress. He does not realize he is just building a cage. The more layers he adds the harder it will be for him to change direction when the market shifts. He is locking himself into a version of seriousness that will eventually bankrupt his agility.
“True substance is found in the gaps between the tools. If you have to talk about your stack for more than 3 minutes to explain how your business functions, it’s too heavy.”
– Packaging Analyst Reflection
True substance is found in the work that happens because the tools are invisible. If you have to talk about your stack for more than to explain how your business functions then your stack is too heavy. If you feel the need to show off your licensing portal to a guest then you are looking for validation in the wrong place.
The best businesses I have ever seen are the ones where you cannot even tell what software they use because they are too busy delivering value to talk about their infrastructure. They have 10 people and they have 10 licenses and they have a profit margin that would make a Silicon Valley CEO weep.
We have to stop equating the weight of the box with the value of the gift. We have to stop thinking that a heavier stack means a more serious business. It usually just means a more distracted business. It means a business that is paying a tax on its own insecurity.
The Serious Kitchen
I am going to throw this pan in the trash because the black crust is not coming off and I am going to buy a new one that is made of simple stainless steel. No non-stick coating that flakes off and no heat-indicator lights on the handle and no fancy branding. Just a pan that gets hot and cooks food.
That is what a serious kitchen looks like. And a serious business looks like a team with the right tools and the right licenses and a clear path to the finish line. The black crust in the bottom of my pan is a better indicator of heat than a stack of licenses is an indicator of a busy office.
I will probably regret throwing the pan away when I have to spend 42 dollars on a new one but the sight of it is making me angry. It reminds me of all the wasted hours and all the wasted money I have seen poured into the altar of complexity.
We can do better than this. We can be leaner and we can be faster and we can be more honest about what we actually need to succeed. We just have to stop being afraid of the empty space in our server racks. We have to realize that a small box that works is infinitely more serious than a massive rack that is only there for show.
Now I am going to finish my cold toast and I am going to sleep and tomorrow I am going to help someone else trim the fat off their stack before they burn their own dinner.
