Error Budgets

Biological Parallel

Bet-hedging strategies allocate resources across multiple uncertain outcomes—desert annuals produce both drought-resistant and fast-growing seeds, balancing survival against opportunity. Error budgets formalize bet-hedging: allocate acceptable failure quota to enable exploratory innovation rather than demanding zero-defect stability. A plant species that produces only one seed type optimizes for one scenario and dies in all others. Risk tolerance isn't recklessness; it's evolutionary portfolio diversification.