alt Hacker NewsEveryone quotes Goodhart's law, but I think the McNamara fallacy is even more important nowadays. It should be read aloud to every CEO every day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
TLDR: Making a decision based on only qualitative data, and therefore ignoring qualitative information and observations, can lead to bad outcomes. Not everything that is important can be easily measured.
Replies
waldarbeiter • today at 4:57 PM
> Making a decision based on only qualitative data
I suppose you meant quantitative and it's just a typo
These bad outcomes aren't coming. Maybe we as customers don't like it but it doesn't mean the companies are suffering for it.
For example, McDonald's reported a full-year 2025 net income (profit) of $8.563 billion, an increase from the $8.223 billion reported in 2024.