My comment from this [0] discussion two days ago: Keep your eye on the prize, and the prize isn't measured by metrics. Any prize in the real world is something

My comment from this [0] discussion two days ago: Keep your eye on the prize, and the prize isn't measured by metrics. Any prize in the real world is something complex and complicated, hard to describe and prone to squishiness. Metrics are things that are "easy" to measure and compare across systems. Setting goals in terms of metrics is appealing and even necessary because it makes things measurable and comparable in the real world, but you need to have some cross-check where you can come back and verify that you are moving closer to your real world goal. --- A real world example: Consumer products are often distinguished by appearance, and surface quality is an important facet of appearance. You purchase a surface quality tester and improve the measurements produced by the surface tester to the point where you beat a competitor's surface measurements. Then you have a customer clinic and have real potential customers evaluate the two products again. Customers prefer the competitor product because you were not actually measuring attractiveness or appearance of quality, you were measuring something that the surface tester measures. 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21601996