From Technical Debt to Technical Capital

We often speak about “technical debt” but instead, should we consider a new concept coined “technical capital”? In this session, Denali Lumma uses an analysis of open-source projects to consider “technical debt and capital” and explores if there is a correlation between the two. She covers concepts such as mean, median, standard deviation, and Gaussian distribution in relation to forecasting. Denali then provides examples of open-source projects, including machine learning frameworks, databases, browsers, and code editors, to demonstrate how cycle time variance can be used to measure the value and health of a code base. She concludes with ideas for how to borrow techniques from the financial world to inform technology decisions.

Topics covered:

• Technical debt and technical capital
• Forecasting future value
• Making data-driven decisions as a technology operator

• Speakers
• Denali Lumma, AI Frameworks Engineering, Modular