Tuesday, 17 February 2026

Seth's Blog : Misguided optimization

Industrialism brought us the idea of optimization. Incremental improvements combined with measurement to gradually improve results. We can optimize for precision. A car made in 2026 is orders of magnitude more reliable because the parts fit together so ...
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Misguided optimization

Industrialism brought us the idea of optimization. Incremental improvements combined with measurement to gradually improve results.

We can optimize for precision. A car made in 2026 is orders of magnitude more reliable because the parts fit together so well.

We can optimize for customer satisfaction. By reviewing every element of a user’s experience, we can remove the annoyances and increase delight.

We can optimize a horror movie to make it scarier, and we can optimize a workout to make it more effective.

Lately, though, the fad is to optimize for short-term profit.

This will probably get you a bonus. It means degrading the experience of customers, suppliers and employees in exchange for maximizing quarterly returns.

Make a list of every well-known organizational failure (from big firms like Yahoo to Enron to Sears all the way to the little pizza place down the block) and you’ll see the short-term optimizer’s fingerprints.

You can’t profit maximize your way to greatness.

        

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