In many cases, smaller is better. I’m not writing this because I’m short, although it has some interesting advantages (like being able to fully extend your legs on a train). I’m writing this because this is a general rule that one can find in businesses, communities, policies, living things, and others. When you check around you, small things are generally more convenient, easier to move around, to change and modify, antifragile, more robust, stronger, or resilient.

Startups

A startup is always faster in its early stages. The team is small. It can pivot quickly. There are only a few processes, perhaps even none at all. The communication is easy and blazing fast. It can iterate, fix, update, pivot, patch, roll back, and communicate at light speed. Everyone shares the vision, the context, the strategy, what’s happening, what users want and think.

Small and nimble teams are forced to be creative and find cost-effective solutions because resources and workforce are limited. This leads to more efficient problem-solving, pushing the team to focus on what truly matters —the one thing that can make or break the entire project.

But as the company grows, communications and coordination become harder. Applying Metcalfe’s law makes communication and coordination exponentially more difficult. Information is lost, and the context is slowed down. This adds up to reaching a point where every new hire's output is inferior to before. More resources are required to ship a product that would have been shipped way faster before. This is even worse if efficient processes are not put in place.

Many companies have faced this state to the point they must fire a very large part of the team if they want to survive, like Coinbase, who fired a thousand employees in 2021 because it grew too fast in its headcount.

Of course, growth might be required if the startup wants to survive over time and address new markets and users, but the efficiency is not linear nor convex; it’s concave. Without effective processes, it can even have a negative impact on the shipping pace, e.g., having a team of 8 engineers building a product might slow you down versus a team of 4.

Strong Nuclear Force

The strong nuclear force is the most powerful force known in the universe and one of the four fundamental forces of nature, alongside gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak nuclear force. This force is responsible for holding the nucleus of an atom together, binding protons and neutrons despite the repulsive electromagnetic force between the positively charged protons. It operates over a very short range, approximately the diameter of a proton (about 10^−15 meters).

Without this force, atoms, as we understand them, would not exist.

The strong nuclear force is approximately 100 times stronger than the electromagnetic force, 10^6 times stronger than the weak nuclear force, and 10^38 times stronger than gravity.

Codebase

Smaller codebases are easier to maintain and read. With fewer lines of code, developers can quickly navigate the codebase, spot bugs, and fix them. This simplicity makes it easier to onboard new developers and contributors, leading to faster development cycles.

A smaller codebase also results in faster execution times and more responsive applications, enhancing the user experience.

The reduced size means a smaller attack surface and simpler testing requirements, which improves the code's security and robustness.

For instance, Morpho Blue's codebase—an open-source smart contract for lending and borrowing that holds billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies—is only 600 lines long, tiny compared to typical web applications or financial systems. This minimalism enables better auditing, transparency, and security since only core features remain. By eliminating everything unnecessary, it has become one of the most secure protocols in the DeFi ecosystem.

Living Creatures

Most robust species are the smallest ones. Take, for example, the cockroach or even the tardigrade, which is close to the ultimate example of a robust animal. It can survive where almost no other living creatures could: it can endure temperatures from -272C to 150C, radiations, vacuum space, and has been there for more than 500 million years, predating dinosaurs. Being microscopic helps tardigrades survive extreme conditions: their small size means they have a high surface area to volume ratio, which allows them to absorb water and nutrients from their environment efficiently.

On the opposite, the largest animals are more likely to go extinct. The dinosaurs I just mentioned all died. The only animals that survived their era were the smallest ones, as they needed less food to survive, could find shelters easily, and reproduce faster.

Large animals are usually on top of the pyramid. Those are usually carnivores. This is not an ideal place to be when unexpected events happen and affect the whole edifice, as the effect tends to propagate more upward than downward.

Nature penalizes more large organisms than smaller ones.

Communities

In smaller communities, people know one another, trust is higher, and accountability is built into the social fabric. When everyone is connected, there is a stronger sense of responsibility, and conflicts can be resolved faster. This creates a more resilient community where bonds are strong, and collaboration is natural, especially in moments of crisis.

Corruption and lobbying have less of an influence. When everyone knows each other, transparency increases, and there is less room for external forces to manipulate the system.

Take Switzerland, where the cantons (local regions) have autonomy over critical areas like education, healthcare, and social welfare. This decentralized approach allows for tailored solutions that are more effective and efficient than top-down, one-size-fits-all policies. For example, the canton of Zug is now known as “Crypto Valley” for its innovative policies that support the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries and attract global attention and investment.

We’ll see a revival of small communities in the coming decades with independent regions, the apparition of small and autonomous villages, and the apparition of network states here and there.

Now I’m leaving you with Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, who inspired the title of this piece.

Enjoy.