I think vibes are underrated. The smart people can easily mislead you because they're smart. So you can cover things up with "official statistics", maliciously or by accident.
For instance, inflation is a big one. I remember during the first spike in inflation (2021 I believe), I started nothing prices have gone up between 25-50%. We've been told at the time inflation was something like 7% but that would mean paying $5.35 for something that used to cost $5, which was obviously not what was happening. In short, they play games with the numbers.
Bezos was on Fridman talking about something similar. He learned that Amazon’s metrics said typical wait time less than 1 min to reach customer service. But everyone complained about how long it took. So in a meeting he called Amazon’s customer service line and was put on hold for over 10 minutes, far exceeding the promised wait time. He stated, “When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
All in goes off vibes and try to tie it to reality but sometimes miss the mark. But I think the vibes are often more right than the data.
For instance, inflation is a big one. I remember during the first spike in inflation (2021 I believe), I started nothing prices have gone up between 25-50%. We've been told at the time inflation was something like 7% but that would mean paying $5.35 for something that used to cost $5, which was obviously not what was happening. In short, they play games with the numbers.
Bezos was on Fridman talking about something similar. He learned that Amazon’s metrics said typical wait time less than 1 min to reach customer service. But everyone complained about how long it took. So in a meeting he called Amazon’s customer service line and was put on hold for over 10 minutes, far exceeding the promised wait time. He stated, “When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right."
All in goes off vibes and try to tie it to reality but sometimes miss the mark. But I think the vibes are often more right than the data.