Stats are for Optimization, not Innovation

Imagine there’s a county where people like swimming, but they had:

• No clocks
• No standardized pool length

What are the chances that this country will have top tier swimmers? How can people truly get better if they can’t measure their performance? You need to measure to improve.

Except, that’s not always true.

Do you think anyone looked at stats when surfing was inventing? People just tried to do stuff they enjoyed. If it felt good, they did it more. Eventually, once it got off the ground, stats started coming into play.

Stats are for optimization, not innovation. You don’t need them when you’re going from 0 to 1.