When I worked for an investment fund, I produced research papers. I spent 80-90% of my time reading, interviewing, and thinking about companies. I would write all the learnings and thoughts down into a word document to surmise my views on these businesses and whether they would merit an investment.

Similar to any form of writing, there were multiple drafts. I would present my case, get feedback, and update the research. However, I didn’t want to lose past thoughts so I would name them something like “company_name_v1”, “company_name_v2”, etc….

My coding friends would be quite familiar with the need for version control. It was normal in my audit and consulting days. My consulting days were filled with it as some financial models would have 30-40 versions at times.

Early in my investing career, I sent over the final version of my research report to the fund manager for his thoughts, titled “company_name_vfinal”. He replied back asking me why it was final. I replied because I was done with it and I had shipped the product.

It seemed a silly question at the time but he taught me that I was merely done for now but the research was never a final thing that would be set in stone and not returned to. I renamed it to another numerical version but the message was clear.

Most things are never really final.

Just because I send out an essay or someone ships a product, it’s not really the final version. A perfectionist would say there is still more to be done.

A great product company like Apple might ship their new iPhones on some date but there are plenty of people within the company who probably believe it isn’t the final product. Might even explain why we have more than 10 versions of an iPhone. I, as a customer of Apple, am buying the latest version of a product that is still being iterated on (whether I’m aware of it or not).

This is the thought that came to my head as I scribbled updates to make to my website. The website in its current form is past its fifth iteration. It had once told one particular story and now it tells another as I try to have it keep up with my own evolution.

It's similar to many software products that are intertwined in our lives in the 21st century. Most companies don’t have a final product. The software constantly gets iterated with new features.

I, as a person, am constantly iterating and my final version would actually be when I’m dead. This is probably the same for products and companies as well. When it ceases to iterate.

I understand it might sound nihilistic or even glib but the point is, there is no final version of anything we create. We should be prepared to iterate towards the next version until we can’t any longer.