Unknown Unknowns #17 - Does Money Corrupt?
Going on a plane tomorrow for the first time in eighteen months. Last March, I was in Utah when everything started shutting down. Rushed back to New York not knowing what would happen.
Now I'm heading to Hawaii for my honeymoon as worries grow. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly.
This is a long way to say that I'll be skipping the newsletter next week.
Is Money the Root of Evil?
Last week, we talked about Goodhart's Law, how "when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." But most people measure their life by how much money they make.
Having a singular focus on money makes you lose perspective on all the other benefits. When you're paid to do something, there's a temptation to make it more efficient, to maximize the amount you're paid at the expense of everything else. Does this mean you should do things for free?
No, if you're creating value, you should reap the benefits. But concentrating on making money may feed back into making your product worse.
Money isn't the root of all evil, using money as the measure of your life is.
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Have a great week,
Chris