18 ms·

Do data-driven companies win?

109 points by dil8 4y ago

davzie 4y ago
Sometimes, but the company will lack soul, purpose and a meaning that it stands for. Sometimes it's better to stand by what you want your company's values to be, even if that means losing some potential customers. As a result, you'll have more passionate and engaged customers who are more likely to stick with you long term.
ggeorgovassilis 4y ago
"Data-driven" is a fancier term for "empirical", a method for building knowledge based on observation. The other method is "epistemology", a method for building knowledge by reasoning about things. A successful organisation should not snob the one over the other.
- deltathreetwo 4y ago
  Why not just use the layman terms. Science and logic. The terms derived from philosophy are the most snobbish in my opinion. Additionally Logic and science formalize these concepts, Epistemology on the other hand has a lot of qualitative mumbo jumbo, with concepts like "belief."
verisimi 4y ago
Define "win". Is it about making money? Or is it about about using your money to gain greater control? Or some combination of both? This article assumes its all about the money. But if - as I believe - we are under some hybrid corporate-governance system, where these 2 domains are working together whilst appearing to be separate, then the measure is not just money.
Ozzie_osman 4y ago
I worked at a self-described "data-driven" company, and the analogy senior leadership liked to make was that the company was like a machine learning algorithm, using data (particularly A/B tests) to do "gradient descent" of the product into its optimal form. My first take-away was that using data to make decisions is tremendously, tremendously powerful. A/B tests, in particular, can help determine causality and drive any key metric you want in the direction you want to. Short-term, it seems to work great. Long-term, it fails. Being purely data-driven without good intuition and long-term bets (that can't be "proven" with data), and the product loses its soul. You can (and should) invest in metrics that are more indicative of the long-term. And you should use data to help guide and improve your intuition. But data is not a substitute for good judgment, or for a deep understanding of your users and their problems, or of "where the puck is going". It's just a tool. It's a very powerful tool, but if it's your main or only tool, you will lose.
- luoc 4y ago
  100% agree and I think the same issues apply. For our search algorithms we learned how to handle local minima etc.. I just wonder if those solutions apply to data driven companies since the iteration speed and failure cost is so much higher. I'm afraid good intuition will outperform this on the long run.
- atrettel 4y ago
  This idea is sometimes called the McNamara fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
  - wussboy 4y ago
    There are a lot of powerful ideas in that article. Every leader of a "data driven company" should read it and tremble.
    - rawgabbit 4y ago
      I did a lot of reading on this particular subject. An opinion which I think is the most correct is that the war was driven mostly by knee jerk reactions and whatever faulty data there was, was never considered. LBJ didn't want to "lose" Vietnam. LBJ remembered Joseph McCarthy who accused the Truman administration of losing China to communism. JFK and Ngo Dinh Diem were murdered in 63, Gulf of Tonkin incident in 64, and full US armed intervention by 65. This was a rollercoaster ride that the US military didn't plan for and didn't want. McNamara picked Westmoreland to lead the military effort. It was a disaster. Their lack of a coherent strategy was doomed from the start. The body counts and #bullets per enemy killed was akin to rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. On top of their minds was the Korean War, when the US military operated at China's border and China intervened militarily. Hence, US military land operations was limited to South Vietnam. There were no plans to invade North Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger decided the end game was to breakup the USSR-China alliance. With China on the US' side, the USA no longer had a national interest in what happens to Vietnam. The US left Vietnam in 73 and the country was overrun two years later.
- 4y ago
KingOfCoders 4y ago
I see too many "data driven companies" that are not data driven, but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. On top of that I see companies with employees who didn't understand college mathematics but now want to be data driven - E.g. basing major decisions on 10 customer feedback data points. Or who don't know the difference between median and average.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  There's also something to be said about having the wisdom to understand which data you can do something about and which you can't. E.g. if the metrics of customer acquisition vs customer LTV don't make sense on a fundamental level, it doesn't matter what your other metrics are showing.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  More like data driving companies, am I right?
- Quarrelsome 4y ago
  > but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. the thirst of some people when I give them something that sounds like what they want. When they re-parrot last years findings back to me incorrectly because they only listened to the parts that backed up their instinctual beliefs. Makes me angry I waste my time on the data when all they wanted was an excuse. I coulda given them an excuse without having to do all that data digging...
  - buscoquadnary 4y ago
    Sounds like you need to embrace the "Zen of Wally" my friend. Just pull up Dilbert.com search for Wally and then read every strip associated with him. At the end you will understand. You will also receive extra points if you do this while you are supposed to be working as that is practicing not just living the Zen of Wally.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >I see too many "data driven companies" that are not data driven, but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. Bingo. And judging by many of the comments here, it's spoiled people's opinions on what it really means to be "data driven". I mean, imagine advocating for "good judgement" when so much empirical research says it's not repeatable?
kristiandupont 4y ago
I think "dashboard" is perhaps a better analogy than some even realize. When I hear someone describe their startup as purely data-driven, I picture someone driving a car while focusing exclusively on the dashboard. Data is valuable. Some KPI's can show important, even vital information -- often not directly but through the first or second derivative. If something changes rapidly, you probably want to take notice. Overall though, I think the metrics that we have available are about as helpful to a company as the metrics we can track about our bodies are to our health. Sure, monitor your weight, HRV or even your blood sugar levels and get some insight. Let it help inform your decisions. But only that.
- itsdrewmiller 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules - driving entirely by instruments can be important too!
bob1029 4y ago
We use the term data-driven to describe certain parts of our product wherein we use SQL queries against faithful models of the domain to make deterministic, traceable choices. Certainly works for us, but I don’t think this is how most people understand “data-driven” anymore.
davidkuennen 4y ago
I connect data-driven to A/B testing. And A/B testing for me is like squeezing the maximum out of an orange, instead of making more oranges. It will give a short term boost, but eventually you will have to look beyond your data and explore new things your customers really want.
- jlei523 4y ago
  A/B testing can definitely make product teams feel like they're making progress but it should not be a team's only strategy. It's a bit like moving the furniture around the same room.
  - cestith 4y ago
    Nobody has a big enough test set to A/B test every combination of elements for a web page, a product feature set, or even a conference presentation. The combinatorics are just unwieldy. Someone has to have multiple good ideas and the ability to carry them out properly before an A/B test is even valuable. Otherwise you're measuring one uninformed random change against another. A/B confirms whether you've succeeded in improving something. It can't really suggest what to try next.
- Enginerrrd 4y ago
  I think this is akin to focusing too hard on things that are appear easy to measure over things that are (perhaps incorrectly) perceived as hard to measure. The parable of the drunk found looking for his keys under the light instead of inside the dark bar where he lost them comes to mind. What's needed is a flashlight, however imperfect.
mejutoco 4y ago
I believe everything else being equal data-driven is better. Of course if data-driven means short-term with bad KPIs this version of data-driven will fail. I think a lot of people picture this A/B short-term testing when they think of it. A data-driven approach is still far from objective and relies on choosing good metrics to optimize for. To this end I would recommend the book "How to measure anything" from Douglas W. Hubbard (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure_Anything https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure...)
- mrweasel 4y ago
  > I believe everything else being equal data-driven is better. While I understand your point, it also depends on what you mean by "better". It's certainly safer, less risk, more predictable and makes planning easier. It also limits creativity and high pay offs. Some one else commented that it was like "driving by looking only at the dashboard". You can do that very safely in planes, but you're limited in where you can go. I feel it's the same in business. There is the option of you having an absolutely massive dataset available. It just seems a bit far fetch to assume that any company would have data that could allow them to move from developing a SaaS product to running a chain of burger joints, because the data indicates that would be a good move.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >It also limits creativity and high pay offs. Why would being data-driven limit either of these things?
    - mrweasel 4y ago
      Because being 100% data driven means that you're removing ideas and opportunities that exist outside your datasets. It's not realistic to have a dataset large enough to cover all situations, especially not those areas and opportunities that you don't know exist. That's also way Googles 20% projects was such a good idea. It allowed to business to grow and develop in directions they couldn't possible predict.
  - 4y ago
user_named 4y ago
I don't think any company is more data driven than any other. After they're successful, companies all need some minimum of measurement. Some say they're data driven but internally data is usually a mess. The right question is, are there any companies where data is not a mess? I'm guessing not.
- geoduck14 4y ago
  >The right question is, are there any companies where data is not a mess? I'm guessing not. I've been in a company that claimed to be "data driven". There was plenty of data that wasn't a mess - and we used it to make a lot of decisions. But, of course, we discovered new uses for our data - and that had to be cleaned. The distinction is that all data starts messy, but you clean some, then discover new dirt. So you clean that, then discover some more. Some companies have more clean data than others.
SilverBirch 4y ago
I find his rankings of which companies to invest in hilarious. It's like, take the attributes that you think will make a good solid company - experience in the industry, strong analytical skills, good operational skills. You know, the things we know for a fact are going to make a good solid successful company. Ok, take them, and throw them away. We're not interested in them. We're interested in variance. I think fundamentally this suffers from the problem lots of VCs have right now. Cheap money meant that the correct investment strategy was to just pile money into high risk bets. I think this calculation looks very different without free money.
what-the-grump 4y ago
Look at the 13Fs for last quarter, find the funds that are still up, ask them if they made trades based on technicals and data or purely on gut feeling that it’s time to buy lean hog futures again because they’ve been through this before. Careful with the crypto bros they are looking at the sidewalk on 5th ave from their penthouses. Data driven companies tend to use the data to quickly fill in dark spots, collect that income and tap the source dry, and then bureaucracy and nepotism set in and the script is flipped. Data is used to explain away why we lost our shirt and how it’s not our fault. The VC is looking for the moon and trying to argue that more data would somehow make the VC feel less like it’s Las Vegas. Sorry it’s all Vegas unless you want to spread and settle for making few percent by investing in all 5 companies and not trying to guess the pack leader.
AmbassadorNo1 4y ago
I liked this article and agree with the point - when it comes to innovation, new products, and new markets, instinct and experience could probably help more than data. Using data for decision making is more relevant for more mature processes where the data exists to learn from. Being data driven is especially important for data intensive sectors where the complexity of issues cannot be fathomed just by being brilliant, it's here you need to be able to analyse the intricacies using the data to find possible answers. I just published a blog in response to this article explaining my thoughts on it - https://terminusdb.com/blog/some-data-driven-companies-actually-win/ https://terminusdb.com/blog/some-data-driven-companies-actua...
O__________O 4y ago
Data-driven progress is largely for optimizing choices, not discovering them. Being data-driven can be just as dangerous intentionally ignoring data. Companies “win” by focusing on what matters, with the right people, at the right time.
newaccount2021 4y ago
dasil003 4y ago
Like any good idea that sees wide adoption, being "data-driven" has jumped the shark to cargo-cult methodology in most places. The truth is that data is only powerful if applied judiciously with solid knowledge of statistical fundamentals and careful thinking about causality (which will may not be practically falsifiable!). "Data" can also be misread and applied in big powerpoints with a reckless disregard for reality. Enlightenment is understanding enough about data to use it correctly, but also acknowledging its limitations and that to create a successful business you also need vision and insight about potentials and trends for which accurate data does not and can not exist (except as a post-hoc trailing indicator).
projektfu 4y ago
What a ... hand-wavey answer.
thenerdhead 4y ago
I think it's fairly safe to say that most true data-driven companies sustain their innovation and business over the years. They have little incentive to take many risks and will hold their own throughout time. That's to say that real innovation is being more data-inspired. Taking risks with what is known based on your intuition/opinion. A timeless read on this topic is Clayton Christensen's "Innovators Dilemma". I think the exact same phenomena applies to investing too. You can sustain your growth by making moves purely off data, but your big wins may come from being "data-inspired" This blog somewhat covers these ideas in more detail: https://amplitude.com/blog/data-driven-data-informed-data-inspired https://amplitude.com/blog/data-driven-data-informed-data-in... The irony in this all is that nobody can tell the future and therefore what we know in the current moment is the best thing we've got. Even those with more experience, resources, and knowledge can be disrupted. That's the beauty of the world.
compiler-guy 4y ago
Data driven businesses often confuse the data they can collect with the data they need to collect.
Cicero22 4y ago
I think the main issue with being a data-driven company is that it's a known secret. Sure, you can snowball a small edge into a winning position over a few years, but isn't it more likely that your competitors become more data-driven, mitigating your one advantage and enhancing their advantages?

109 points by dil8 4y ago

Sometimes, but the company will lack soul, purpose and a meaning that it stands for. Sometimes it's better to stand by what you want your company's values to be, even if that means losing some potential customers. As a result, you'll have more passionate and engaged customers who are more likely to stick with you long term.

ggeorgovassilis 4y ago

"Data-driven" is a fancier term for "empirical", a method for building knowledge based on observation. The other method is "epistemology", a method for building knowledge by reasoning about things. A successful organisation should not snob the one over the other.

deltathreetwo 4y ago
Why not just use the layman terms. Science and logic. The terms derived from philosophy are the most snobbish in my opinion. Additionally Logic and science formalize these concepts, Epistemology on the other hand has a lot of qualitative mumbo jumbo, with concepts like "belief."

verisimi 4y ago

Define "win". Is it about making money? Or is it about about using your money to gain greater control? Or some combination of both? This article assumes its all about the money. But if - as I believe - we are under some hybrid corporate-governance system, where these 2 domains are working together whilst appearing to be separate, then the measure is not just money.

Ozzie_osman 4y ago

I worked at a self-described "data-driven" company, and the analogy senior leadership liked to make was that the company was like a machine learning algorithm, using data (particularly A/B tests) to do "gradient descent" of the product into its optimal form. My first take-away was that using data to make decisions is tremendously, tremendously powerful. A/B tests, in particular, can help determine causality and drive any key metric you want in the direction you want to. Short-term, it seems to work great. Long-term, it fails. Being purely data-driven without good intuition and long-term bets (that can't be "proven" with data), and the product loses its soul. You can (and should) invest in metrics that are more indicative of the long-term. And you should use data to help guide and improve your intuition. But data is not a substitute for good judgment, or for a deep understanding of your users and their problems, or of "where the puck is going". It's just a tool. It's a very powerful tool, but if it's your main or only tool, you will lose.

luoc 4y ago
100% agree and I think the same issues apply. For our search algorithms we learned how to handle local minima etc.. I just wonder if those solutions apply to data driven companies since the iteration speed and failure cost is so much higher. I'm afraid good intuition will outperform this on the long run.
atrettel 4y ago
This idea is sometimes called the McNamara fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
- wussboy 4y ago
  There are a lot of powerful ideas in that article. Every leader of a "data driven company" should read it and tremble.
  - rawgabbit 4y ago
    I did a lot of reading on this particular subject. An opinion which I think is the most correct is that the war was driven mostly by knee jerk reactions and whatever faulty data there was, was never considered. LBJ didn't want to "lose" Vietnam. LBJ remembered Joseph McCarthy who accused the Truman administration of losing China to communism. JFK and Ngo Dinh Diem were murdered in 63, Gulf of Tonkin incident in 64, and full US armed intervention by 65. This was a rollercoaster ride that the US military didn't plan for and didn't want. McNamara picked Westmoreland to lead the military effort. It was a disaster. Their lack of a coherent strategy was doomed from the start. The body counts and #bullets per enemy killed was akin to rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. On top of their minds was the Korean War, when the US military operated at China's border and China intervened militarily. Hence, US military land operations was limited to South Vietnam. There were no plans to invade North Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger decided the end game was to breakup the USSR-China alliance. With China on the US' side, the USA no longer had a national interest in what happens to Vietnam. The US left Vietnam in 73 and the country was overrun two years later.
4y ago

KingOfCoders 4y ago

I see too many "data driven companies" that are not data driven, but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. On top of that I see companies with employees who didn't understand college mathematics but now want to be data driven - E.g. basing major decisions on 10 customer feedback data points. Or who don't know the difference between median and average.

antisthenes 4y ago
There's also something to be said about having the wisdom to understand which data you can do something about and which you can't. E.g. if the metrics of customer acquisition vs customer LTV don't make sense on a fundamental level, it doesn't matter what your other metrics are showing.
solarkraft 4y ago
More like data driving companies, am I right?
Quarrelsome 4y ago
> but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. the thirst of some people when I give them something that sounds like what they want. When they re-parrot last years findings back to me incorrectly because they only listened to the parts that backed up their instinctual beliefs. Makes me angry I waste my time on the data when all they wanted was an excuse. I coulda given them an excuse without having to do all that data digging...
- buscoquadnary 4y ago
  Sounds like you need to embrace the "Zen of Wally" my friend. Just pull up Dilbert.com search for Wally and then read every strip associated with him. At the end you will understand. You will also receive extra points if you do this while you are supposed to be working as that is practicing not just living the Zen of Wally.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>I see too many "data driven companies" that are not data driven, but selectivly use data to do what the executive wants to be done. Bingo. And judging by many of the comments here, it's spoiled people's opinions on what it really means to be "data driven". I mean, imagine advocating for "good judgement" when so much empirical research says it's not repeatable?

kristiandupont 4y ago

I think "dashboard" is perhaps a better analogy than some even realize. When I hear someone describe their startup as purely data-driven, I picture someone driving a car while focusing exclusively on the dashboard. Data is valuable. Some KPI's can show important, even vital information -- often not directly but through the first or second derivative. If something changes rapidly, you probably want to take notice. Overall though, I think the metrics that we have available are about as helpful to a company as the metrics we can track about our bodies are to our health. Sure, monitor your weight, HRV or even your blood sugar levels and get some insight. Let it help inform your decisions. But only that.

itsdrewmiller 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_flight_rules - driving entirely by instruments can be important too!

bob1029 4y ago

We use the term data-driven to describe certain parts of our product wherein we use SQL queries against faithful models of the domain to make deterministic, traceable choices. Certainly works for us, but I don’t think this is how most people understand “data-driven” anymore.

davidkuennen 4y ago

I connect data-driven to A/B testing. And A/B testing for me is like squeezing the maximum out of an orange, instead of making more oranges. It will give a short term boost, but eventually you will have to look beyond your data and explore new things your customers really want.

jlei523 4y ago
A/B testing can definitely make product teams feel like they're making progress but it should not be a team's only strategy. It's a bit like moving the furniture around the same room.
- cestith 4y ago
  Nobody has a big enough test set to A/B test every combination of elements for a web page, a product feature set, or even a conference presentation. The combinatorics are just unwieldy. Someone has to have multiple good ideas and the ability to carry them out properly before an A/B test is even valuable. Otherwise you're measuring one uninformed random change against another. A/B confirms whether you've succeeded in improving something. It can't really suggest what to try next.
Enginerrrd 4y ago
I think this is akin to focusing too hard on things that are appear easy to measure over things that are (perhaps incorrectly) perceived as hard to measure. The parable of the drunk found looking for his keys under the light instead of inside the dark bar where he lost them comes to mind. What's needed is a flashlight, however imperfect.

mejutoco 4y ago

I believe everything else being equal data-driven is better. Of course if data-driven means short-term with bad KPIs this version of data-driven will fail. I think a lot of people picture this A/B short-term testing when they think of it. A data-driven approach is still far from objective and relies on choosing good metrics to optimize for. To this end I would recommend the book "How to measure anything" from Douglas W. Hubbard (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure_Anything https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/444653.How_to_Measure...)

mrweasel 4y ago
> I believe everything else being equal data-driven is better. While I understand your point, it also depends on what you mean by "better". It's certainly safer, less risk, more predictable and makes planning easier. It also limits creativity and high pay offs. Some one else commented that it was like "driving by looking only at the dashboard". You can do that very safely in planes, but you're limited in where you can go. I feel it's the same in business. There is the option of you having an absolutely massive dataset available. It just seems a bit far fetch to assume that any company would have data that could allow them to move from developing a SaaS product to running a chain of burger joints, because the data indicates that would be a good move.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >It also limits creativity and high pay offs. Why would being data-driven limit either of these things?
  - mrweasel 4y ago
    Because being 100% data driven means that you're removing ideas and opportunities that exist outside your datasets. It's not realistic to have a dataset large enough to cover all situations, especially not those areas and opportunities that you don't know exist. That's also way Googles 20% projects was such a good idea. It allowed to business to grow and develop in directions they couldn't possible predict.
- 4y ago

user_named 4y ago

I don't think any company is more data driven than any other. After they're successful, companies all need some minimum of measurement. Some say they're data driven but internally data is usually a mess. The right question is, are there any companies where data is not a mess? I'm guessing not.

geoduck14 4y ago
>The right question is, are there any companies where data is not a mess? I'm guessing not. I've been in a company that claimed to be "data driven". There was plenty of data that wasn't a mess - and we used it to make a lot of decisions. But, of course, we discovered new uses for our data - and that had to be cleaned. The distinction is that all data starts messy, but you clean some, then discover new dirt. So you clean that, then discover some more. Some companies have more clean data than others.

SilverBirch 4y ago

I find his rankings of which companies to invest in hilarious. It's like, take the attributes that you think will make a good solid company - experience in the industry, strong analytical skills, good operational skills. You know, the things we know for a fact are going to make a good solid successful company. Ok, take them, and throw them away. We're not interested in them. We're interested in variance. I think fundamentally this suffers from the problem lots of VCs have right now. Cheap money meant that the correct investment strategy was to just pile money into high risk bets. I think this calculation looks very different without free money.

what-the-grump 4y ago

Look at the 13Fs for last quarter, find the funds that are still up, ask them if they made trades based on technicals and data or purely on gut feeling that it’s time to buy lean hog futures again because they’ve been through this before. Careful with the crypto bros they are looking at the sidewalk on 5th ave from their penthouses. Data driven companies tend to use the data to quickly fill in dark spots, collect that income and tap the source dry, and then bureaucracy and nepotism set in and the script is flipped. Data is used to explain away why we lost our shirt and how it’s not our fault. The VC is looking for the moon and trying to argue that more data would somehow make the VC feel less like it’s Las Vegas. Sorry it’s all Vegas unless you want to spread and settle for making few percent by investing in all 5 companies and not trying to guess the pack leader.

AmbassadorNo1 4y ago

I liked this article and agree with the point - when it comes to innovation, new products, and new markets, instinct and experience could probably help more than data. Using data for decision making is more relevant for more mature processes where the data exists to learn from. Being data driven is especially important for data intensive sectors where the complexity of issues cannot be fathomed just by being brilliant, it's here you need to be able to analyse the intricacies using the data to find possible answers. I just published a blog in response to this article explaining my thoughts on it - https://terminusdb.com/blog/some-data-driven-companies-actually-win/ https://terminusdb.com/blog/some-data-driven-companies-actua...

O__________O 4y ago

Data-driven progress is largely for optimizing choices, not discovering them. Being data-driven can be just as dangerous intentionally ignoring data. Companies “win” by focusing on what matters, with the right people, at the right time.

newaccount2021 4y ago

dasil003 4y ago

Like any good idea that sees wide adoption, being "data-driven" has jumped the shark to cargo-cult methodology in most places. The truth is that data is only powerful if applied judiciously with solid knowledge of statistical fundamentals and careful thinking about causality (which will may not be practically falsifiable!). "Data" can also be misread and applied in big powerpoints with a reckless disregard for reality. Enlightenment is understanding enough about data to use it correctly, but also acknowledging its limitations and that to create a successful business you also need vision and insight about potentials and trends for which accurate data does not and can not exist (except as a post-hoc trailing indicator).

projektfu 4y ago

What a ... hand-wavey answer.

thenerdhead 4y ago

I think it's fairly safe to say that most true data-driven companies sustain their innovation and business over the years. They have little incentive to take many risks and will hold their own throughout time. That's to say that real innovation is being more data-inspired. Taking risks with what is known based on your intuition/opinion. A timeless read on this topic is Clayton Christensen's "Innovators Dilemma". I think the exact same phenomena applies to investing too. You can sustain your growth by making moves purely off data, but your big wins may come from being "data-inspired" This blog somewhat covers these ideas in more detail: https://amplitude.com/blog/data-driven-data-informed-data-inspired https://amplitude.com/blog/data-driven-data-informed-data-in... The irony in this all is that nobody can tell the future and therefore what we know in the current moment is the best thing we've got. Even those with more experience, resources, and knowledge can be disrupted. That's the beauty of the world.

compiler-guy 4y ago

Data driven businesses often confuse the data they can collect with the data they need to collect.

Cicero22 4y ago

I think the main issue with being a data-driven company is that it's a known secret. Sure, you can snowball a small edge into a winning position over a few years, but isn't it more likely that your competitors become more data-driven, mitigating your one advantage and enhancing their advantages?