Explore / Exploit Fractals

On the Art of Knowing When to Stick or Twist

Lately, the concept of explore/exploit has been on my mind, and once you start noticing it, it seems to show up everywhere. It’s the balancing act between sticking with what’s familiar (exploit) and venturing into the unknown (explore), and it plays out in everything from career choices to daily decisions.

1000x Times a Day

Take something simple, like planning your annual ski trip. For the last decade, you’ve gone to the same resort. You know the best runs, the top restaurants, even the barista who has your coffee ready before you order. That’s exploitation—maximizing the value of what you already know works.

Now imagine mixing it up: spending a week hopping between different ski resorts across the Alps. You’re trading comfort and certainty for new experiences and insights. Sure, some spots won’t measure up to your go-to resort, but you might stumble upon an amazing new slope or a hidden gem of a restaurant. That’s exploration: stepping into the unknown to see what else is out there.

This trade-off is everywhere. In dating, do you keep seeing the same type of person or branch out? In your career, do you focus on refining your existing skills or dive into something totally new? Even something as mundane as picking a movie on Netflix involves this choice—do you rewatch a favorite (exploit) or gamble on a new release (explore)?

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” — Yogi Berra

Look at someone’s CV, and you’ll see their personal explore/exploit balance. The person who’s been with the same company for 30 years is heavy on exploitation. The job-hopper who’s been in a new role every year? They’re leaning into exploration. The sweet spot, as always, is somewhere in between. But where, exactly?

Let’s Talk About Information Economics

Exploitation is leveraging what you already know—using familiar patterns for reliable, low-risk returns. Exploration, on the other hand, is when you step into uncertainty to extract information from the environment which could boost long-term decision-making, even if the immediate payoff is unclear.

It’s a balancing act: when you exploit, you maximize short-term utility by trusting your world model to deliver. But exploration is about building that model—reducing information asymmetry¹. It’s an investment in future utility by filling in the gaps of what you don’t know yet.

The tricky part is figuring out when to switch between these modes. If you’re on a tight timeline or know your environment well, it’s smart to exploit because you already have reliable predictions. But when the future is less clear or there’s more time to play with, exploring becomes a higher-value move. You’re essentially buying future potential by gathering information now that will pay off later.

That’s where the paradox kicks in: to maximize long-term utility, you need a sharp, adaptable world model. And the only way to keep it sharp is to step outside it sometimes—to deliberately ignore what you know and test its limits.²

So, you are not just maximizing utility in the moment—you are maximizing (information) utility over time. And that means a balance of both using your current information (to exploit) and gathering new information (to make sure that your future decisions are based on a better predictive model).

“In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” — Eric Hoffer

Ski Slopes and Russian Dolls

But here’s the twist: explore/exploit isn’t a binary decision. It’s more like a fractal—nested layers within layers of choices.

Back to the skiing example. You might explore different ski areas, but you’re still exploiting your love for skiing, your ability to ski, and the fact that you’ve chosen a ski trip over, say, a beach holiday. Zoom out further, and you’re also exploiting your fitness, disposable income, and how you define a “good time.”

If you were exploring at a broader level, maybe you’d skip skiing altogether. Maybe you’d spend that week volunteering in Costa Rica. And even then, you’d still be exploiting your travel skills, your passport, your comfort with taking time off work—those layers go deep, like Russian dolls.

This layered structure shows up everywhere. At work, you might explore new methods or projects, but you’re still exploiting your position, your industry knowledge, and your core definition of what “work” is.

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.” — Daniel J. Boorstin

Even in a heated argument with your partner, when emotions are flaring and you feel cornered, you’re still exploiting certain strategies. You might be leaning on default reactions—raising your voice, withdrawing, or going silent—because these have become your go-to moves that “work”. You’re also likely using ingrained assumptions, such as believing your partner always misunderstands you or that you’re the weaker one. Notice how heavily you are leaning on your predictive model (which is the very definition of exploiting). That’s where switching to exploration may yield the greatest results.

Switching Off the Autopilot

The real magic of this concept is that it shines a light on what we do on autopilot. We exploit so much without even noticing. When you’re feeling anxious, stuck, or powerless, it’s worth asking: What am I exploiting right now? What am I taking for granted? And what could I explore instead?

When you are feeling sad and lonely, what are you exploiting? Maybe you’re falling back on the same old assumptions—that no one gets you, that reaching out won’t change a thing, or, secretly, that loneliness is noble. But what if you shook things up? What if you flipped the whole script and used this moment to explore something new—even if it feels awkward as hell? Can you explore the awkwardness for once? It might lead you to emotional landscapes you’ve never considered before.

Inner Weather

So next time you catch yourself drifting on autopilot—whether at work, in your relationships, or in your own head—pause and ask: What am I exploiting that I could be exploring?

I found this to be a powerful gateway to shifting the default state—that inner weather we carry with us everywhere we go. Try it out, shake things up, and let me know what you find.

1. between your model and the environment

2. The marginal value of information plays a critical role here. Early in the process, when your world model is incomplete, exploring is highly valuable because each new insight fills in a gap. As your model becomes more refined, however, the benefit of additional information decreases. This is where your brain’s error-minimization system naturally switches from exploratory behavior to exploitation—where the cost of exploring outweighs the gains, creating a natural stopping point for information gathering. This is mathematically formalized as the optimal stopping problem.