Technical Debt Is a Loan. Here's the Interest Rate.
Every shortcut your team takes accrues interest. The problem is it doesn't show up on your balance sheet — until velocity collapses. Here's what the compounding actually looks like.
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Transcript
Your team used to ship a feature every week. Now it takes a month. Nothing obvious changed. That's technical debt compounding — and by the time you feel it, it's already expensive.
Two teams. Same starting point. One ignores the debt — fast early, but by month eighteen, velocity drops sixty percent. Every new feature costs twice as much to build because it has to work around all the shortcuts underneath it. The other team manages debt deliberately. Slower at first. But velocity stays consistent. Features ship predictably. The difference isn't discipline — it's compounding. Ignored debt compounds just like financial interest. Except there's no bankruptcy option.
So what are the types? Intentional debt — you knew the shortcut and took it anyway. That's fine, if you track it. Accidental debt — you didn't know it was a shortcut until later. That one's harder. And reckless debt — moving fast without any plan to pay it back. That's the one that kills teams. Not all debt is bad. But all debt is real. Treat it like a loan, not an oversight.