Weights and Measures, has been weighing on me (sorry) in large part because the place where I work is metrics obsessed and has been for much longer than I have been employed there. Yet, despite their delusional commitment to being “data-driven” we’re getting ready for the semi-annual re-org in an attempt to throw more shit against the wall and see if it sticks.1 We’re also wrestling, simultaneously, with long term mistakes and problems playing out like a broken record as the leadership huffs AI fumes so hard they’re seeing into what they believe is the apparent future.

Isn’t it disturbing that this reads like a horoscope for many, many people in this field? “Hey! He’s describing my workplace too!” I wish my existence was the exception, believe me. Also, why this? We didn’t get Star Trek, fine. But fuck me, we don’t even get Bladerunner or Rollerball, both of which seem like an improvement. If I have to adopt a hideous future can it have pleasure units, flying cars, and unbridled hedonism for the common person at least?

This came to at least some sort of apex yesterday when I approached a senior executive with my concerns about AI’s usage in our company, its dangers, and I felt the supposedly “open” group discussions on the matter had taken a religious tone. Not only was I raised religious, but I’ve also once worked as a programmer for an MLM—errr, network marketing company/cult. I know the rhetoric. I know the tactics. I know the guilt and the shaming and the groupthink and the pressure to conform and the… bullshit.

In no uncertain terms, I was threatened by this individual as he wondered aloud whether the goals of an individual like myself were consistent with company goals. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on what you value in life, the message did not deter my feelings nor position on the matter. Doing the right thing is what matters. I have no intention of compromising the quality my work nor the security of our customers even if the company somehow thinks that’s what it wants.2

This discussion also lead into the immediate distaste of being asked how we would measure things, be it what is “foundational” or what is “successful.” My mind always goes back to the same question when some executive pinhead wants me to put some utterly meaningless value on doing something correctly.

What is the ROI for not shitting in your own bed?

Seriously, imagine if a tradesperson like a plumber or an electrician had to justify to their boss the value proposition for following building codes and using materials that were within specified tolerances. This isn’t a question of ROI. This is a question of doing your fucking job. Unfortunately, it seems that tech companies do not take themselves, nor their customers, very seriously. Despite being entrusted with sensitive data and vital operations, social media companies somehow set the standard and FOMO becomes the single most powerful force in decision-making.

Oh goody.

Seriously, why can’t it just be fucking Blade Runner?

Lies, Damn Lies, and…

Speaking of movies, I love Moneyball, right down to its portrayal of Billy Bean’s own superstition that watching a game had any effect on its outcome. If you’re a superstitious fan like I am, you probably understand this. (I feel like there’s a lesson in here somewhere. I leave it for you to unravel.) With that said, it’s important to remember that “based on a true story” leaves a whole lot of room for many parts to be entirely fictional and in no way connected with reality where it hurts the narrative. This is still a movie and its goal is entertainment, not accuracy.

Regardless, if you hang around in sports circles at all or talk to internet folks on fan boards, they will throw out the term “Moneyball” all over the place like they’re now experts on team building. They’ll sign up for the premium package with Pro Football Focus and correlate the success of their fantasy football team to how well they would be able to handle the position of a real general manager.

To put in perspective how completely and utterly insane this can become, the most devout believe in the numbers beyond what they see with their own eyes. This resulted in enduring two years of a couple people spamming my favorite fan site telling all of us how Zach Wilson was untapped potential and was an amazing quarterback.

If you’re not familiar, lemme save you the trouble. Zach Wilson is a bad NFL quarterback. That’s it. You do not want him as the starter for your team. If he is, you’re fucked. There’s a reason he hasn’t started a game since the 2023 season. To add insult to injury, the Jets dumped Sam Darnold for Zach Wilson. Mr. Darnold just completed the 2025 season as the starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks who just won the Super Bowl. While Darnold didn’t carry the team, he’s good enough!

Back to Wilson, or more specifically, his collection of fanatics and defenders. They compiled stat after stat from his college career, drew parallels with super star quarterbacks wherever they could, and cherry-picked every NFL stat imaginable that was telling the “real” story and how literally everything else on the team was letting him down.3 The thing about these guys is they really believed. They had bought into the religion of measurement and The One True Collection of Important Metrics™ so hard that no matter how bad Wilson wet the bed, that wasn’t going to deter them. No way. We’d all see soon enough! Numbers don’t lie!

Things went off the rails when Mike White—a guy so good he was riding the pine behind Wilson—had a hall of fame worthy game in his first start taking over for Wilson after an injury. Guess who went to town right after this trying to make sense of an anomaly? We had ourselves a good old metrics war for the best QB of two obviously shit quarterbacks.4 Football is already a completely miserable past time if you cheer for the Jets. This did not help.

And Statistics

Mark Twain popularized the adage that there’s “lies, damned lies, and statistics.” I would add the corollary there’s “lies, damned lies, and metrics.” Charles Goodhart would likely agree. Moreover, where statistics are used to cover for weak arguments, metrics and measurement can become a tool of replacing critical thinking with cheap comparisons on a spreadsheet. It also becomes a pitiful way to stymie concern and criticism by asking for the numbers or even more existentially, “Well, how do you actually measure that?”

Bad news, sometimes you don’t. Often times you can’t. While in some existential sense there is (maybe) a deterministic (or at least mostly deterministic) mathematical explanation for everything that could be used as both a predictor as well as a quantifier for everything, are you really going to argue we always have the tools or even the understanding of the interactions of variables to engage with a problem like that? This requires a high degree of confidence in your own ignorance or a low degree of intelligence. Either that or the arrogance of physicists who think they’ve rendered philosophy pointless.5

The more complex the system and the more vague the desired outcome, the more useless metrics become for both prediction and meaningful measurement.

This is not to say you shouldn’t ever measure or that said measurements cannot help inform decisions. The realization of the inherent incompleteness in numbers and that their place in making decisions is entirely subjective in spite of their own objectivity is essential to working with these tools instead of becoming and unwitting evangelist.

Don’t Be a Pinhead

Football is a very complex and very dynamic sport. Having said that, even though the rule book is thicker than the Bible at this point, it’s still a sport and is still governed by rules. It is by its nature significantly more measurable than some random ass software company or pretty much any medium sized corporation whose goals and rules of engagement and focus can change with the wind. (I refer back to our semi-annual re-org.)

At its highest level, it’s a multibillion dollar industry where each franchise is operated by billionaires who—even when their team has been complete garbage for 15 years—basically just print money with it. Owners can afford the best of the best of the best for virtually any position they want. Like other sports, football is seeing more metrics and statistical analysis become a part of the draft and in game process of many franchises.

Does it work? Is it any good? Probably? Sorta? It depends on the application and the franchise. I can tell you for certain that more metrics have not helped the Jets rise above the popularity generated by the Butt Fumble6 in 2012. Having the budget to hire more people to apply more numbers has not turned anything around. Hell, the Cincinnati Bengals—another franchise historically famous for making its fans hate football—are 114-111-3 since 2012, including multiple playoff appearances and a Super Bowl appearance. The Jets? 77-152 without sniffing the playoffs, let alone a Super Bowl.

Why mention the Bengals of all teams? Mike Brown, their owner, is notoriously cheap and has one of the most anemic scouting departments in the NFL. They are a bad franchise—a notably bad franchise. Without a commitment to metrics or numbers or even spending they’re still better than the Jets in pretty much every way that matters.

Woody Johnson, owner of the Jets, is a trust fund baby moron who knows very little about football. He represents the problem with the organization because the decisions flow through him. Bad organizations are ultimately reflections of bad leadership. The illusion of good process and the illusion of objectivity are no replacement for… good process and reasonable objectivity as part of that process. Of course, good process is also a deep understanding of wide subjectivity as well.

Dear leaders, at some point you need to take a step back from your worship of data and remember what p-hacking is and how easily numbers can be gamed by organizational nitwits. Ironically7, it’s the nitwits who will abuse this to their advantage more than anyone. The responsible and/or intelligent who genuinely care about their work and actual output will not because people like us recognize that these are not the same thing. We will also be exploited by said nitwits! The optimists among us will be very confused over and over again.

A numbers driven culture will produce mediocrity at best and abuse at its worst. Numbers need to be tempered with a greater overall philosophy and driving force.

A really good starting place is to understand when a question is rhetorical rather than in need of a measurement. For instance, if someone asks, “Should we stop shitting in our own bed?” Just say, “Yeah, we should. Do what must be done.” Don’t ask precisely how many turds in the bed constitute a real problem or if there are any features about said turds that need more precise measurement. Just insist that your organization stops shitting in the bed. That’s a really good start.

Zero Trust Sucks

I realize the shitting in the bed thing is very tongue-in-cheek, but not by as much as I’d like. I want to reinforce the idea that there are industry standards and practices that need to be taken as gospel (hopefully) before any metrics are even considered let alone measured. Building codes are not up for discussion in construction by the tradespeople. You either do them or an inspector tells you to redo it.

Software systems and development really need a heavy dose of this sort of standardization. Unfortunately, the industry is grotesque in its disdain for its own history. It suffers from a sort of industry version of “American Exceptionalism” and its leaders at the highest levels are among the most ignorant and arrogant out there.

There is this belief that tools, numbers, and automation will remove the need for any sort of wisdom or sober judgement. And believe me, given the complete lack of both wisdom and sober judgement, I wish we could rid ourselves of the need for it! If only wanting made it so.

Trust is one of the most important components of successful organizations. Do I have a formal study I can share on this matter? Nope. I’m making a pronouncement. I’m comfortable with that.

I believe the more an organization lacks trust in its own management system and individuals, the more it thirsts for so-called objectivity—and as stated this is, even in the best case, illusion.

Anyone who has worked on a team of 10 or 20 knows who produces, who is dependable, who is knowledgeable, and who is an asset. The individuals closest the books and making payroll are incentivized in a big way to understand this well. We rarely use metrics in small organizations because this is common knowledge.

Hell, in most small organizations I’ve worked in, the slapdicks know who they are. They rarely hang around in small companies because they know they need a place large enough and blind enough not to notice how they coast through their work day. In fact, what they look for are metrics obsessed organizations because nothing gives you cover for nothing like metrics! Figure out how to game the numbers and get coasting—especially if you can locate a top performer to commingle your output with.

As organizations grow, hierarchies need to grow. Layers need to trust layers—either that or your leaders decide layers are for chumps and that good management is mere bureaucracy and just do away with the idea entirely. Zero trust is no way to live nor is it a way to run an organization. Organizations are distinctly human and need to be treated as such.

We’re not computers. We’re not rational. We’re not just a collection of metrics. Attempts to approach us as such are inherently broken because it’s the wrong fucking paradigm you pinhead.

Put away your spreadsheets and maybe think about cultivating relationships with your management team. If you don’t trust your managers, guess what?

That’s on you… you fucking pinhead.

And Woody Johnson, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that you’re the patron saint of pinheads. St. Woodrow of Johnson, a guy with two names that are synonymous with “dick.”

The Jets suck. I wish they would stop sucking.

I also wish my job would stop sucking.

  1. I guess this is a metric? ↩

  2. Also, my guy, you’re as intimidating and informed as a traveling faith healer and far less charismatic. ↩

  3. This is entirely believable because we’re talking about the Jets here and the only thing they excel at is sucking. ↩

  4. Lemme just say, I understand that most practice squad QBs are all world players compared to most of the population. Neither Wilson nor White are terrible players in general, but there aren’t even enough quality starters in the NFL to fill the existing 32 teams. The Jets always have shit QBs by professional standards. ↩

  5. That’s right Stephen Hawking, I’m looking at you. Proof that someone can be both otherworldly brilliant and completely obtuse all at the same time. Humans are complicated. ↩

  6. The summary is an “infamous American football play.” Was it ever. ↩

  7. I’ll level with you, I have no idea what this word really means. ↩