Numbers that move systems
Welcome to the corner of the Internet that’s trying to fix our economy by putting better data in the hands of those who need it.
RFK - the First - was one of the earliest, and most articulate, advocate of the failures of GDP. It’s one of the most sought-after, yet dangerous, metrics. Strikingly simple, it counts car crashes, chemotherapy and oil-spill cleanups as growth, and locks nations into a competitive race that ends up exploiting the planet’s resources. GDP is only loosely related to what really should be the goal - human flourishing on a sustainable planet, and the disconnect is largely due to externalities being missing from the calculus. Plenty of efforts have been made to come up with alternative measures for GDP.
Hero Metrics is not trying to do that.
Instead, we’re taking small slices of our - often broken - economy, and trying to fix it. Piece by piece. It does this by shining light on ‘externalities’ - metrics that matter to people and planet but aren’t captured by our systems. The theory of change here is that if we can surface some of this transparent information, we may all do a better job.
The pesticide budget of a postcode, the loneliness of an eighty-year-old, the tumours turning up early in the neighbourhood’s dogs, the drug residue in a city’s wastewater: each is measurable, and none of it is priced, funded or acted on. The data is sitting there, overlooked, uncollected and generally ignored.
Three important caveats that need spelling out. First, this is not an entirely novel exercise. Far from it. From carbon credits, to our entire tax system, our policy makers are trying everyday to fix what’s not working and account for externalities. Escalating inequality, institutional mistrust and democratic breakdown suggest that our policy makers need to do a better job.
Second, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that one metric would fix everything, even a small part of it. We’re dealing with systems that rejoice in delivering unexpected outcomes from individual inputs. When complexity doesn’t mess things up, humans do. Certain metrics they’re often gamed mercilessly, and can represent what’s wrong with much of our mechanistic, and soulless economic system. And third, this stuff is hard. Results are variable, and this is one of the reason why I’m building this in public.
So why now?
A few things. The need and ability to shift intelligence to the edge. The big tech companies and AI models are hoovering up data. They’re amassing ever more centralized power while policy makers struggle to keep up. We shouldn’t have decisions on the future of our civilization depend on whether a handful of uber powerful tech CEOs are feeling charitable about the species. The second thing that’s changed is the ability - people can do capture, process, store and benefit from new data - from wearables to media to home monitoring.
Each newsletter edition takes one hidden signal, in a human body, an animal, a household or a whole biosphere, and follows it through the arc that gives the newsletter its name:
Hidden. A signal exists, but it is commercially invisible.
Externality. Its cost leaks across a boundary no market prices.
Revealed. Sensors, AI and citizen data make it legible.
Opportunity. Once legible, it becomes an indicator, a company, sometimes a whole category.
One signal per edition, bi-weekly is my goal, when life allows. I tell the story, you tell me what I missed; the new ideas for HERO metrics will get folded into the future editions and credited by name. Let me know numbers you think should move a system, or a builder turning one into something fundable.
