The article argues that each additional layer of review in a process slows progress by a factor of ten, primarily due to waiting time rather than effort, and this bottleneck is not alleviated by AI coding tools. While reviews are necessary to maintain quality and reduce costly mistakes as organizations grow, excessive layers can degrade efficiency and mask root causes of problems, leading to a culture that values checks over genuine quality improvement. The author suggests adopting a Deming-inspired approach emphasizing trust, continuous systemic improvements, and modular small teams that produce high-quality components to reduce reliance on slow review cycles and create a more effective, scalable engineering culture.
