Ask HN: How has your profession affected your non-professional thinking?

Re:Ask HN: How has your profession affected your non-profess... by pfedor on Wednesday July 06, 2011 @11:31PM (#2737019)

After having worked a few years at Google I truly internalized one thing: You can control what you can measure.

For example, I talked to my girlfriend who convinced herself for some reason that she needs to lose weight. She mentioned a number of things she could do towards that goal. She wanted to start working out, or start counting calories, stop eating deserts, etc. My first instinct was that the first and most important thing you should do if you want to lose weight is: Buy a scale and weigh yourself every day. All the other things I viewed as secondary.

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Re:Ask HN: How has your profession affected your non-profess... by lhnz on Thursday July 07, 2011 @10:44AM (#2738602)

Can you always control what you can measure? As much as I liked the idea, I don't think this is really true. I do however think the opposite is true: "You can't control what you can't measure" as the maxim goes.

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Re:Ask HN: How has your profession affected your non-profess... by pfedor on Thursday July 07, 2011 @11:38AM (#2738888)

Yes, you're right. "You can't control what you can't measure" sounds more true. I guess there is an implicit "only" in my version.

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