The Lindy Effect of Lessons Learned

Every December, founders and technologists look back and ask: what was real progress, and what was just noise dressed up as innovation? The Lindy Effect, a heuristic that suggests the longer something has lasted, the longer it is likely to last, provides the proper filter. If a principle or practice has endured, it will likely continue to endure. If it flared and faded within the year, chances are it won’t matter much in the long run.

Enduring Principles: The Long Game

  1. Systems over Hacks. Quick hacks and growth tricks dominate Twitter threads, but enduring companies run on systems. A founder who builds predictable processes beats one who relies on chance.
  2. Compounding > Virality. Retention, trust, and habit formation continue to matter more than going viral. Virality peaks. Compounding endures.
  3. Calm over Chaos. Founders who build calmly, not in a panicked state, have shown that they last longer. Calm is not slowness. Its durability.
  4. Human-Centered Technology. Whether AI copilots or workflow tools, the winners make humans better, not redundant. Every tool that amplifies judgment and clarity will outlive those that only automate noise.
  5. Ethics as Strategy. With the EU AI Act, GDPR, and increasing regulatory scrutiny, ethics stopped being a side project. Principles outlast hacks because regulation and reputation always catch up.

Already Dated: The Year’s Hype Casualties

  1. Novelty for Novelty’s Sake. AI wrappers, “ChatGPT but for X,” and hundreds of half-baked clones already feel like abandoned toys.
  2. Metaverse Maximalism. A year ago, every deck still promised a metaverse strategy. Today, the hype looks quaint. Functional fragments may endure, but the capital-M Metaverse as pitched is already fading.
  3. VR Meetings. Forced virtual office spaces proved that nobody wants legless avatars in a fake boardroom. The Lindy signal: people still default to text, calls, and video.
  4. Tokenized Everything. Web3 promised token incentives for every interaction. Most of it collapsed into scams or apathy. Blockchain primitives may endure, but mass tokenization already feels old.
  5. Hustle as Identity. The performative hustle posts, “I sleep 4 hours, build 20 hours, repeat”, aged overnight. Systems of rest and clarity have more Lindy power than exhaustion-as-a-brand.

Filtering Signal from Noise

The Lindy filter is simple: ask if it has survived previous versions of itself. Email has been declared dead for decades, but it remains alive. Shiny metaverses come and go, but real community networks endure. AI copilots have precedent in decades of decision support tools will likely evolve, not vanish.

Looking ahead to the next year, the safest bet is that what has lasted already will last even longer. As for the latest miracle trend, ask: does it rest on timeless principles, or is it just another costume party for a fading trick?