"Is this reversible?" Your path to 10x decision velocity

Sarah was drowning in data.

As a Senior PM at a major tech company, she had six months of user behavior data. Heat maps. Session recordings. 2,400 survey responses. Her team had run 32 A/B tests and analyzed every competitor feature.

The decision? Whether to change their checkout flow from two steps to one.

The team was split. Half argued the single-page checkout would reduce friction—pointing to Amazon and Shop Pay as proof. The other half worried about cognitive overload, citing their 23 form fields including shipping options, gift messages, and promo codes. They'd analyzed cart abandonment rates at every field, mapped out 14 different error states, and documented how it would affect their mobile experience where 67% of purchases happened.

Six months into planning, her team was still debating.

Then her manager asked one question that changed everything:
"Is this decision reversible?"

Sarah realized they'd spent six months perfecting a decision that could be undone with a single code deployment. They shipped the next week. The one-step checkout overwhelmed mobile users—conversion dropped 12%. They reversed it in two days. And learned more in those two days than in the previous six months.

This wasn't luck. It was Jeff Bezos's framework in action.

The framework that most PMs miss

At Amazon, there's a deceptively simple mental model that drives their legendary shipping velocity. Bezos calls them Type 1 and Type 2 decisions (read his 2016 letter to shareholders describing the concept).

• Type 1 decisions are one-way doors. Once you walk through, you can't go back. These are your irreversible, bet-the-company moves. Killing a product line. Choosing your core architecture. Making that key executive hire. Get these wrong, and you're living with the consequences for years.
  

• Type 2 decisions are two-way doors. You can walk back through. These are your reversible experiments. Feature flags. Pricing tests. UI changes. Most A/B tests. Get these wrong, and you fix them next sprint.
  

Here's the insight that changed Sarah's career: most decisions are Type 2, but we treat them like Type 1.

Why this happens everywhere

This pattern appears at every company. There's something deeply human about our relationship with decisions that makes us systematically miscategorize them.

Take Marissa Mayer's well-known 41 shades of blue test at Google. When designers debated which shade would maximize clicks, Mayer pushed to simply test them all. Classic Type 1 thinking applied to a Type 2 decision.

Or consider Airbnb’s Host Guarantee program. When they decided to offer hosts up to $1 million in protection, that was genuinely Type 1. Once announced, they couldn’t walk it back without destroying trust. Brian Chesky and his team had to navigate complex legal implications and financial modeling before launch. Right call.

The psychology of false irreversibility

Why do smart people consistently treat reversible decisions as irreversible?

1. Ego. Nobody wants to ship something that fails. But a reversal isn’t failure—it’s learning.
   

2. Organizational theater. Endless analysis often signals “thoughtfulness” more than it improves outcomes. Sarah’s 32 A/B tests and 14 error states weren’t about better checkout design—they were about looking rigorous.
   

3. Overestimated reversal costs. Her team feared backlash, but the actual reversal took two days and affected just 0.1% of users. The emotional cost loomed larger than the real cost.

How the best teams break the pattern

At Spotify, Daniel Ek pushed into podcasts with over $1 billion in acquisitions (Gimlet, Anchor, Parcast, The Ringer). It looked like a one-way bet, but every product feature could be dialed back, and even exclusivity deals like Joe Rogan’s later became multi-platform. They structured a massive strategic move as a series of reversible decisions.

Contrast that with when Spotify adjusts its core recommendation algorithms. That’s genuinely Type 1—get it wrong and millions of Discover Weekly playlists break. These kinds of changes require long, careful testing before rollout.

Netflix takes this philosophy even further. Their mantra: “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not moving fast enough” is often attributed to tech culture at large—but the underlying idea aligns with Netflix’s “freedom & responsibility” culture. Even their biggest bets, like international expansion, were staged country by country, show by show—each step reversible.

The exception? Ending DVD-by-mail service in 2023. Once Netflix shut down the infrastructure and contracts, there was no going back. That was pure Type 1.

The reversal success story

Sometimes the best decisions are the ones you unmake.

When Microsoft announced the Xbox One in May 2013, it required always-online connectivity and blocked used games. The gaming community revolted. At E3, Sony openly mocked them.

Remarkably, Microsoft reversed course 29 days after the reveal (and 9 days after E3). Don Mattrick published a blog post: “You told us what you wanted and we listened.” They scrapped the online requirement and restored used game support.

The result? Xbox One ultimately sold around 50 million units. Not as many as PS4, but far more than if they’d stayed the course. The reversal wasn’t weakness—it was strength.

The practical framework

So how do you actually implement this? How do you know if a decision is truly reversible?

The framework breaks down into four steps:

1. Apply the Reversal Test - Can this be undone in under two weeks without material damage?

2. Calculate True Costs - What's the actual price of reversal vs. the price of delay?

3. Document Reversal Triggers - What specific metrics or events would trigger a rollback?

4. Make Reversal Real - Build the actual technical and organizational capability to reverse

Let's go deeper on each one.

Step 1: Apply the Reversal Test

Start with three questions. Can you undo this decision in less than two weeks? Can you do it without material damage to customer trust? Can you do it without creating significant technical debt? If you answer yes to all three, you're looking at a Type 2 decision.

But here's where most teams stop, and where the framework breaks down. Knowing something is reversible isn't enough. You need to make reversal a genuine option, not just a theoretical one.

Step 2: Calculate True Costs

The math is simpler than teams make it. Here's the formula:

Reversal Cost < (Delay Cost × Probability of Being Wrong) = Ship It

What's the actual cost to reverse - in engineering hours, customer communications, and system changes? Now compare that to the cost of delay - lost learning, missed opportunities, and competitor advantages. When reversal cost is less than delay cost multiplied by your chance of being wrong, you have your answer.

Step 3: Document Reversal Triggers

This is what separates theory from practice. Sarah's team now writes one-page "reversal plans" for every Type 2 decision. What metrics would trigger a reversal? Who makes the call? What's the technical rollback process? This isn't pessimism – it's what makes speed possible.

Step 4: Make Reversal Real

The final step is building actual reversal capability. This means feature flags in your code. Rollback scripts tested and ready. Communication templates drafted. The ability to reverse can't be theoretical - it must be as real as the ability to ship.

The transformation

After Sarah adopted this framework, everything changed. Decision times dropped from months to days. Her team shipped 3x more features. Their success rate improved—because learning loops replaced over-analysis.

Most importantly, failure became cheap. A reversed Type 2 decision wasn’t a career setback—it was a normal Tuesday.

Your next decision

Here’s your challenge: look at your roadmap. Find the decision you’ve been overthinking. The one buried under dashboards and endless stakeholder meetings.

Ask yourself: Is this actually reversible?

If yes, ship it this week. Not next month. This week.

And remember—the meta-insight: adopting this framework is itself a Type 2 decision. You can always go back. But the data says you won’t.

What Caught My Eye This Week

Must-Watch YouTube: Kurzgesagt reveals you're blind 2 hours a day—your brain just fills in the gaps. Reality is a prediction, not a fact. Perfect companion to overthinking decisions that don't matter. Why Your Brain Blinds You For 2 Hours Every Day.

Reading: "Experiential Billionaire" by Bridget Hilton & Joe Huff - Build wealth in experiences, not just bank accounts. The authors studied with monks and swam with sharks to prove most bucket list items are Type 2 decisions—completely reversible. Their finding? We overthink adventures like we overthink features. Ship your life. Get the book

Quote: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now." - Chinese Proverb. Stop waiting for the perfect moment to start that project. Your future self is begging you to just begin.

🛠️ Tool Find: Fish.Audio - The voice AI that users claim beats ElevenLabs on authenticity. 15-second voice cloning, 200K+ voice library, actually nails emotions like sarcasm.

🎲 Wildcard: A study found that people who doodle during meetings retain 29% more information. Started scribbling during Zooms - my notebooks look insane but my recall is incredible. Sometimes the "wrong" way is right.

Stop analyzing. Start shipping.

~ Warbler