A better question is, &quot;How do you spend $1 billion on software and <i>succeed</i>?&quot; The fundamental problem isn&#x27;t the quality of your developers, it&#x27;s the fact that you have to coordinate multiple environments composed of mutually-irreconcilable workflow and processes, legacy systems never designed to talk to <i>anything</i>, and real-world problems that aren&#x27;t amenable to solutions at scale. Big Bang projects are almost impossible to get off the launchpad in a single piece, so can we learn from the ones that actually make it to orbit? Or is there an inverse Tolstoy effect here -- every failed project is alike, but every successful project is successful in its own way?