A CTO’s Perspective: Strategic Implications of ‘Cherry Picking Our Own Fake Bin’ in Technology Roadmaps

As a CTO, I spend my days making tough calls about technology. It’s not just about picking the latest tools. It’s about aligning tech with business goals, budgets, and our team’s strengths. One of the most powerful tools I’ve found? Looking back at what we’ve already built—even the stuff we’ve discarded.

The Parallels Between Coin Authentication and Technical Roadmaps

In the world of rare coins, experts have a “fake bin”—a place for items that don’t meet strict authenticity standards. But sometimes, that bin holds surprises. A replica might turn out to be historically significant. It might even be worth more than the original.

This happens in tech too. We have our own “fake bin” of software, tools, and ideas that didn’t make the cut. Maybe they were too slow. Maybe they didn’t scale. Or maybe we just didn’t understand their potential at the time.

Take the Bar Cent reproduction by John Adams Bolen. It’s not an original colonial coin. But it’s masterfully crafted, historically significant, and now certified (NGC 61 BN). In tech, we see the same thing. A “suboptimal” component might be exactly what we need—if we take a closer look.

Why “Fake Bins” Exist in Tech

In our engineering work, we often set aside things that don’t meet our standards. These become our tech “fake bin.” It might include:

• Code or tools we deprecated due to security updates.

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• Systems that failed initial QA for performance or scalability.

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• Proof-of-concept projects we never moved to production.

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• Open-source tools with tricky licensing or maintenance issues.

Just like in coin collecting, we’re too quick to write these off. But as tech leaders, we need to ask: *Is this really “fake,” or just misunderstood?*

Strategic Reevaluation: The “Bolen Moment”

Bolen’s Bar Cent was a copy—but a brilliant one. It earned a professional grade because someone took the time to appreciate its craftsmanship. In tech, this is like rediscovering a legacy system, an old library, or a quick prototype that actually works well.

Next step: Set up a quarterly “fake bin review.” Use a simple scorecard to evaluate each component. Look at maintenance costs, team expertise, integration effort, and how well it fits your business goals.

We had this exact moment with a homegrown API gateway. We’d labeled it “too fragile” and set it aside. Eighteen months later, during a tight budget year, we took another look. What did we find?

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• The code was modular and well-documented.
• Our senior engineers knew it inside out.
• It was 30% faster than the commercial option we’d been considering.

We cleaned it up, added monitoring, and rolled it out. Saved us $350K in licensing fees. That’s the power of a second look.

Technology Leadership: Seeing Value in What We’ve Cast Aside

Being a tech leader isn’t just about chasing the latest trends. It’s about making smart choices with what we already have. “Cherry picking” from our fake bin means:

1. Fostering Technical Curiosity

Engineers learn by trying things. Sometimes they fail. That doesn’t mean the idea was bad. We started a “Tech Archival Sprint” every quarter. Teams pick 3-5 items from the fake bin. They spend two weeks testing if they’re worth reviving. Then they present their findings.

Results? We’ve brought back two microservices, a custom logging tool, and a CI/CD pipeline. Together, they’ve saved us over $1.2M in development and licensing costs.

2. Making Decisions with Data

Here’s the scoring system I use to evaluate old tech:

Score = (Strategic Alignment × 0.4) + (Team Knowledge × 0.25) + (Maintenance Cost × 0.2) + (Scalability × 0.15)

Where:
- Strategic Alignment: 1–10 (Does it support our long-term goals?)
- Team Knowledge: 1–10 (Do our engineers already know it well?)
- Maintenance Cost: 1–10 (Lower cost = higher score)
- Scalability: 1–10 (Can it handle much bigger workloads?)

If something scores 7 or higher, it gets a closer look. This keeps us from making choices based on gut feelings.

Budget Allocation: Turning Old Tech into Savings

One of the most valuable things a CTO can do? Find ways to reuse existing resources. Our fake bin? It’s full of potential savings.

Case Study: Cutting Cloud Costs by 22%

We had an old analytics engine using an outdated version of Apache Flink. We’d set it aside due to security concerns. But:

• It handled 90% of our batch processing.
• Our data team knew it well.
• Upgrading it was much cheaper than starting over.

Instead of buying a new cloud-native solution ($400K/year), we:

1. Fixed the security issues.
2. Put it in containers for better management.
3. Connected it to our modern monitoring tools.

Total cost: $75K. Annual savings: $325K. That’s an 81% reduction.

Budget Allocation Takeaway

Set aside 10-15% of your engineering budget for “rediscovery sprints.” This isn’t about new research. It’s about getting better returns from what we already have. It shows your team their past work still matters.

Managing Engineering Teams: Empowering Rediscovery

As CTO, I know our team’s enthusiasm depends on feeling valued. Letting them revive old projects? That’s a powerful motivator.

Create a “Legacy Innovation” Incentive Program

We introduced:

• Rediscovery Bonus: 5% of the cost savings if an old component works again.
• Innovation Credit: Engineers get 10% of their time to work on fake bin projects.
• Cross-Team Pairing: Junior engineers work with seniors to breathe new life into old code.

The results? 40% more reuse of internal tools. 25% fewer senior engineers leaving. They felt their experience was being put to use.

Owning Our Code, Not Throwing It Away

When we discard a tool, we often lose the knowledge behind it. The Bar Cent sat forgotten for years until someone recognized its value. Same with our code. When we abandon it, we lose the context. To fix this:

• Document why we deprecated something.
• Assign someone to “guard” each archived component.
• Hold quarterly review sessions with the original developers.

Tech Roadmaps: Making Room for Rediscovery

Your roadmap shouldn’t just focus on new features. It should include revisiting what we’ve already built.

Build a “Rediscovered Assets” Milestone

Structure your roadmap to include:

• Q1: Take stock of the fake bin (automated scans plus team reviews).
• Q2: Run 3 rediscovery sprints (pick the highest-scoring items).
• Q3: Try one revived component in production.
• Q4: Check its performance, cost, and team impact.

This turns past experiments into future wins.

Example: The Logging Framework Revival

We had a custom logging tool in Go, set aside due to lack of log rotation. Instead of buying a new solution, we:

1. Updated it to use io.Writer for rotation.
2. Added structured logging with zap.
3. Connected it to OpenTelemetry.

Now it’s our standard—used in 90% of our services—saving $180K annually and cutting problem resolution time by 40%.

Conclusion: The CTO as a Curator, Not Just a Builder

Cherry picking our fake bin isn’t about settling for less. It’s about making smarter choices. As CTO, my job is to shift our thinking from:

• “What’s new?” → “What have we overlooked?”
• “Build new” → “Rebuild smart”
• “Spend on new tools” → “Invest in rediscovery”

Just like the Bolen Bar Cent earned value through its craftsmanship, our “fake bin” technologies can deliver real value when we take the time to understand them. Your tech stack isn’t a static list of tools. It’s a collection of opportunities—some we haven’t fully realized yet.

Go back. Look again. You might find your next big advantage hiding in plain sight.

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