My current company is in that 5% part right now. Tremendous effort invested into the system, everyone involved was very proud of themselves. Unfortunately the way we actually needed to scale was almost completely untouched by any of this architecture astronomy, so we have both a terrifically complicated system - very difficult to change things without potential breakage or regression - AND it doesn't scale at all.
I don't mind, I don't blame people for not predicting the future - it's a tough game. But god the hubris and attitude we put up with until the crows came home to roost.
> I assume you mean astrology (prophecy), not astronomy (science)?
I took "astronomy" as an allusion to the fact that @atomicnumber3's team was metaphorically peering at their scaling needs through a telescope, an instrument with a very narrow field of view.
I don't mind, I don't blame people for not predicting the future - it's a tough game. But god the hubris and attitude we put up with until the crows came home to roost.