Second Brain

Disagree, Commit, Then Reverse

The Story

At Facebook Groups, a senior engineer named Bob pushed hard for a massive data model migration. Boris disagreed. He thought it was unnecessary work. But Bob was more senior, had deeper context on the codebase (he was one of the original Facebook Groups engineers), and felt strongly about it.

Boris committed to the plan and executed it. Six to twelve months of work. Hundreds of call sites to migrate. It was grueling.

When it was done, the data confirmed what Boris had suspected: the migration was technically correct but practically unnecessary. The original data model worked fine for both use cases.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Instead of saying “I told you so,” Boris asked Bob himself to reverse the migration. He chose Bob specifically because (a) Bob had the most technical context and would do it best, and (b) it showed maturity on Bob’s part to accept the reversal.

The outcome: instead of damaging the relationship, the whole episode strengthened it. Bob respected that Boris was willing to commit fully to a plan he disagreed with, execute it well, and then push back with evidence. Bob became a champion for Boris’s promotion.

“You have to earn trust first. Disagree and commit. Show you have good judgment. Then push back.”

Lesson for Creators

Sometimes you need to do the work you disagree with to earn the credibility to change direction later. The long game beats the argument. If you’re in a collaboration, a partnership, or working with a client and you disagree on direction, committing fully and then course-correcting with evidence builds more trust than fighting the battle upfront.

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