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Thank you. Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.

I'm your host, Julia Galef, and with me is today's

guest, Douglas Hubbard. Doug is a consultant and author of several books, including one of my

favorites, How to Measure Anything, Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business. Doug, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Julia. So one of the reasons I think that

I've ended up recommending your book to many people over the years is that it's this neat hybrid

between being on the one hand a very practical sort of advice-driven book, and that's sort of how it's packaged. But on the other

hand, underlying all that advice is this idea that I think is actually very important and quite

deep once you get it, which is that you can measure anything. And this is an idea that is kind of counterintuitive and that, as you

describe in the book, a lot of people sort of instinctively resist. And one of the things I'm hoping to

focus on today with you is why is that? Why do we resist the idea that we can measure things and quantify our uncertainty?

And what are some of the ways to do that? So let's jump in. What are some examples of the kinds of

things that people tend to say are, oh, that's impossible to quantify, to put a number on or to measure that you would disagree.

Sure. Well, I can give you some real examples we've actually done.

You know, people are asking us to measure the value of information governance or measuring drought resilience in the Horn of Africa or the impact of

...