Jeff Bezos: When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.

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articles.data.blog Saved Tuesday, January 20, 2026 Readwise
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Quick Take

Perfect intersection of engineering craft and product intuition that Brian deals with constantly in fintech. The practical wisdom about trusting user complaints over metrics directly applies to his work building credit-card-linked offers platforms and analytics dashboards.

Relevant Domains

Engineering craft/architecture/productivity AI/agents/future of software work (secondary - relevant to building better monitoring) Side projects/automation/earning from skills (how to avoid this trap in his own products)

Blog Angles

1

"Why Your Analytics Dashboard Is Lying to You (And How to Fix It)"

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Your Hook

2

"The Anecdote-Driven Engineer: When to Ignore Your Metrics"

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3

"Building Metrics That Don't Lie: A Fintech Engineer's Guide"

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Key Quotes

When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right
It's usually that you're not measuring the right thing
You have to seek truth, even when it's uncomfortable

Tags

#data-driven-decisions #engineering-leadership #fintech-lessons #metrics-design #user-experience #debugging #technical-intuition