The 2023 film BlackBerry contains a perfect two-line exchange that inverts the conventional wisdom about perfectionism:
Jim: Mike, are you familiar with the saying "Perfect is the enemy of good?"
Mike: Well, "Good Enough" is the enemy of humanity.
This hits differently in the context of BlackBerry's story. The company's obsessive pursuit of technical excellence ultimately contributed to its downfall when competitors shipped "good enough" products faster.
Yet Mike's retort isn't wrong either. Most breakthrough innovations came from people who rejected "good enough"—whether it's Steve Jobs insisting on pixel-perfect UI details or SpaceX pursuing reusable rockets when everyone said it was impossible.
The tension between these two philosophies is unresolvable. "Perfect is the enemy of good" is wise advice for shipping products and avoiding analysis paralysis. But "good enough" really is the enemy of breakthrough innovation.
The key might be knowing which battles require perfection and which require pragmatism. BlackBerry got it backwards—perfecting hardware keyboards when software keyboards were good enough for the mass market.
It's a reminder that maxims like "perfect is the enemy of good" are contextual, not universal truths.