In 2012 New York City started a program for 16- to 18-year-olds at the Rikers Island jail. It was paid for with a social impact bond. Goldman Sachs invested $7.2 million and would be repaid only if reoffending fell by 8.5 percent.
In 2015 the evaluation found that the program had no effect on reoffending. The program ended. Goldman Sachs lost $1.2 million, after a guarantee from Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the city repaid nothing.
The Northridge earthquake of 1994 brought down sections of the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles. The rebuilding contract gave the contractor, C. C. Myers, 140 days, and a bonus of $200,000 for each day the bridge opened before the deadline.
Myers finished in 66 days, 74 days ahead of schedule. The bonus came to about $14.8 million. Some reports gave $14.5 million.
The Federal Acquisition Regulation tells U.S. government buyers how to describe the services they purchase. They should state “the required results rather than either ‘how’ the work is to be accomplished or the number of hours to be provided.”
Such contracts must include “Measurable performance standards (i.e., in terms of quality, timeliness, quantity, etc.),” a method for “assessing contractor performance against performance standards,” and “Performance incentives where appropriate.”
In California, a home improvement contract must describe the project and the significant materials and equipment. By law, it must also contain a section headed “Note About Extra Work and Change Orders.”
That section must state that extra work and change orders “become part of the contract once the order is prepared in writing and signed by the parties.” A change order “must describe the scope of the extra work or change, the cost to be added or subtracted from the contract.”
“Early on, all of our movies suck.” Ed Catmull of Pixar wrote this in his 2014 book Creativity, Inc. He continued: “They are not beautiful, miniature versions of the adults they will grow up to be. They are truly ugly: awkward and unformed, vulnerable and incomplete.”
At Pixar, directors were expected to show these “ugly babies” to colleagues early.
On April 20, 2023, SpaceX tested Starship, the most powerful rocket in the world, in Texas. About four minutes into the flight, the rocket exploded. SpaceX called it a “rapid, unscheduled disassembly.” SpaceX employees could be heard cheering.
SpaceX said: “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn.” NASA administrator Bill Nelson congratulated the company. Elon Musk said another booster of a newer design was ready for the next test.
“Done is better than perfect.” Facebook painted these words on the walls of its offices. Mark Zuckerberg explained why in his letter to investors. The letter was part of the filing, dated February 1, 2012, for the company’s stock market listing. The words were there “to remind ourselves to always keep shipping.”
In the same letter he described what he called “the Hacker Way.” Hackers, he wrote, build “by quickly releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get everything right all at once.”
The saying is older than Facebook. It has been in print since at least 1979.
“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn, posted this line on March 29, 2017. The same day he published an essay with the title “If There Aren’t Any Typos In This Essay, We Launched Too Late!”
He did not say it only once. The author Eric Ries wrote that Hoffman “often says” it.
“Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.” This is lesson 7 in Eric S. Raymond’s essay “The Cathedral and the Bazaar.” Raymond first presented it in May 1997. O’Reilly published it in a book of the same title in 1999.
Raymond wrote that he had once believed the opposite. Early versions are “almost by definition buggy versions,” and developers did not want to “wear out the patience” of their users. Linux changed his mind. In its early days, Linus Torvalds sometimes released a new version of the kernel more than once a day.
Get it done. This is a common instruction and a common compliment. The question is whether it happened, not how.
Whatever it takes. The method is left open. Only the result is fixed.
Let the results speak for themselves. The speaker would rather show the outcome than explain the effort.
Move the needle. Work that does not change the number does not count.
Hit your numbers. This is said of salespeople, managers and whole companies. The target is a figure, and it is either reached or missed.
Work smarter, not harder. Effort alone earns no credit. A better route to the same result earns praise.
An A for effort. This is said when the work was sincere but the result failed. It is a consolation, not a grade.