Ryan NisbetOperations, Delphi · Operations at Delphi

Inventor of the Like Button: Code Wins Arguments

19 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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The inventor of the Like button recalls a company culture where "code wins arguments." Instead of debating endlessly, teams built prototypes, shipped them, and let real results drive decisions. A poster with that phrase became the rallying point for moving fast and deciding based on data, not speculation.

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rather than like argue it out or like write a bunch of memos and work it through the entire company. It's just like, build the damn thing. Yeah, code wins arguments. We used to have this poster around the office. If there was one artifact from that company that I wish I still had, it was the code wins arguments poster because it was just so much more clarifying. It was much more invigorating to say like, instead of us arguing this out, let's just like ship the thing and look at what it did and then make a decision based on that. Because then at least we're looking at like hard data rather than like who, you know, getting into the debate club over like what the right thing is.