In Defense of Complexity
Most people run from complexity. I chase it.
Give me a project with three acronyms in the title, 12 stakeholders at the table, and twenty regulatory hoops to clear—and I’m in my element. Not because I enjoy chaos (actually, I like that too), but because complexity is where the real story lives.
I figured this out early in my career, at SolarReserve. Picture this: I’m working with rocket engineers (yes, the literal kind) as the company was trying to commercialize concentrated solar power (CSP) towers with integrated liquid molten salt storage technology (go ahead, try saying that three times fast without tripping over your tongue.) Every meeting was a blizzard of acronyms, thermal loops, and equations that looked like they belonged on a chalkboard at Caltech. My job wasn’t to master the physics—it was to explain why this weird, futuristic-looking tower with rings of mirrors surrounding it was the future of dispatchable power. To investors. To Treasury lawyers. To skeptical communities that just wanted to know if it would interfere with air traffic.
And I loved it. Because I realized: the story doesn’t get weaker when it gets complex. It gets richer, sharper, more alive—if you know how to handle it.
Complexity is Where Authority Lives
Every technical industry has its own alphabet soup. In CSP, it was heliostats, thermal storage loops, and MW-to-MWh ratios. In transmission, it’s reconductoring, NERC compliance, and kVs. In storage, its degradation curves and round-trip efficiency. Toss those into a press release without explanation, and you lose half the audience before you’ve even finished the sentence. But translate them into meaning, and suddenly you’re the one people depend on to make sense of the mess.
I’ll never forget helping wrangle a DOE loan guarantee application. It was like trying to braid together three different languages: engineers wanted precision, lawyers wanted bulletproof risk mitigation, and regulators wanted clarity. Every line had to survive being pulled in three directions at once. It wasn’t the technology that was hardest to defend—it was the language. And the moment you could translate molten salt tanks and heliostat arrays into “dispatchable energy that stabilizes the grid after sunset,” the room went quiet and people leaned in.
That’s the thing: authority doesn’t come from skipping complexity—it comes from decoding it. If you can untangle it, explain it, and connect it to what actually matters—timelines, dollars, approvals—you own the conversation.
Complexity is Where Trust is Built
Clients, partners, employees—none of them actually want things dumbed down. What they want is for it to make sense.
For engineering companies in renewable energy, I wrote about how a 200 MW battery could lose $1–2 million a year in downtime. That’s not a “complicated systems” story—it’s a bottom-line risk story. When you translate the technical problem into the language of money, clients stop glazing over and start paying attention.
Or take those Nevada community meetings during SolarReserve’s early days. You’ve got ranchers and retirees staring up at renderings of a 600-foot solar tower. To them, it’s not “innovative renewable infrastructure”—it’s a giant mirror threatening their horizon line and maybe their water supply. No amount of technical jargon would have won them over. What did? Saying, clearly: “This project brings tax base, jobs, and stability to your county without draining your aquifer.” Same complexity. Different frame. A story that built trust instead of eroding it.
Even internally, employees don’t want a firehose of acronyms with no context. They want to know how this system, this project, this deal connects to the future they’re investing their careers in. Clarity isn’t just external PR—it’s culture.
That’s why trust doesn’t come from glossing over complexity. It comes from proving you understand it deeply—and showing why it matters.
Complexity is Where Stories Get Interesting
Let’s be honest: nobody remembers the simple stuff.
No one brags about the perfectly straightforward project that sailed through permitting with zero hiccups. What people talk about are the puzzles, the friction, the near-misses that had to be solved.
The molten salt tanks that froze solid overnight. The interconnection study that revealed a multi-million-dollar substation bottleneck no one planned for. The endangered bird study that nearly stopped a solar project in its tracks. Or the 400-page RFI that landed on a Friday afternoon and needed answers before Monday morning. Those are the stories people actually repeat—because they carry stakes, tension, and payoff.
That’s the irony: the stuff most brands try to sand down or hide is usually the stuff that makes their story most compelling. Complexity gives you drama. It gives you tension. And tension is what makes people lean in.
Boring brands run from that. Smart brands lean into it.
The Bigger Point
Complexity isn’t a burden—it’s the raw material.
In energy, infrastructure, and every technical industry, you’ll never run out of acronyms, regulations, specs, and standards. You can either bury them in jargon and hope nobody notices—or you can translate them, frame them, and use them as proof of your authority.
That’s why I love complexity. Because when you lean into it, it doesn’t push people away. It draws them closer. It’s what makes people believe, invest, and stay.
If your brand is drowning in acronyms, tangled specs, or molten-salt-storage-level headaches—that’s my sweet spot. Let’s talk.
