Once upon a time a Software Engineer and a Mechanical Engineer needed to lift the leg of a table and slide a carpet underneath. The Software Engineer, being younger, offered to lift the table with his hands. This would create enough room for the Mechanical Engineer to slide the carpet under. They would repeat the process for each leg.
The Software Engineer lifted with all of his might, but could not raise the table. “The worker is not powerful enough”, he declared. “I will call in some more people. By scaling out the number of workers, we will reduce the amount of power each worker needs. When we have sufficient parallel workers, the table leg will rise.”
The Mechanical Engineer replied, “Get me a 2×4 and a brick.”
And so the edge of the table was lifted. “I estimate that the lever gives me about 20:1 leverage,” the Mechanical Engineer said, holding the table up with one hand.