The Size of the Box
The Size of the BoxSanta Clara’s School of Law steadily raised tuition year after year, from roughly $44,000 in 2015 to $63,280 in 2025. Yet it just announced its 2026–27 tuition: $50,000. Why the sudden drop, and why such a round number? That's because, starting next year, professional school borrowing in the US will be capped at $50,000 per year. Education costs, it turns out, expand to fill the size of the box we assume to be the default. Change the box, and the “necessary” cost instantly adjusts. This isn’t only about tuition. The length of studies also grew to fit expectations. With a bit of exaggeration: finishing middle school for my grandparents was roughly equivalent to finishing high school for my parents, finishing university for me, and, if we continue the trend, finishing a PhD for my children. Simple degrees that once took one or two years stretched until they matched the duration of other, more complex degrees. The box grew, and everything expanded with it. As a result, we all end up poorer (we begin adult life later and with more debt, and start families even later). The broader issueI see the same dynamic in business. Tasks stretch to the amount of time the manager implicitly allows. Projects and bureaucracy inflate to match the scope and complexity of unrelated projects. Meetings default to the duration that colleagues have normalized, even when the topic does not require it. We rarely ask whether the box we’re using is larger than the work actually needs. But ensuring the box is never larger than necessary can produce dramatic savings in time, effort, and complexity. It’s a question worth asking ritualistically. (As I sometimes joke, a significant part of the value of AI will be in ritualistically invoking simple questions such as "could this be simpler" or "can it be done faster," which people are terrible at keeping on their mind at all times.) (Share this as a blog post) Last week's essay, now publicI usually publish a copy of this newsletter's essays on my blog, but last week was a hectic week, and I didn't do that in time. Apologies. So, here is the link to last week's essay on surveys. ReminderRegistrations to the ninth edition of my Antifragile Organizations course are underway. It will take place in February 2026, but registrations close earlier than that. Tweets & Quotes |
Luca Dellanna
Everyone deserves better managers
Elastic and Plastic Change To understand why many change initiatives fail, consider what happens when you bend a business card with your fingers. If you bend it slightly, once you release pressure it springs back into its original shape. But if you bend it far enough, once you release pressure it remains bent. The technical terms for these two conditions are elastic and plastic change. Change initiatives fail when they produce elastic change, and succeed when they produce plastic change. To...
Resistance is signal Allow me to use a personal anecdote to introduce a concept that’s highly relevant to business. In 2025, I finally leveled up my gym workouts, from a chore delivering moderate results to an enjoyable activity that delivers excellent results. What changed wasn’t the workout routine, but the stance I took toward resistance. For years, I treated emotional resistance as something to power through. And power through I did: I went to the gym, lifted weights, did “the inputs.”...
Police Shootings and Post-Mortems (read as a blog post) Last week, an officer shot a woman in Minnesota after she tried escaping with her car in a way that put him in danger. Most of the discussion I read on social media was around two topics: whether the car hit the agent or merely scraped him, and whether the agent was correct in reacting by shooting her. Not only do I dislike the framing that there's exactly one side at fault. But my broader opinion is that, unless you're close to the...