Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás

Everyone knows the last part of this quote but the preamble adds a lot to solidify the deeper message. This is a fundamental (often unacknowledged) problem with how tech companies in Silicon Valley operate — move fast, institutional knowledge and memory is not worth investing in. At least not until you’re mired in lawsuits.