Case 8 — The voice of validation #

“Our users love us,” said the founder to Master Lin. “Every success metric for our last feature portrays happiness.”

Master Lin picked up a pebble and threw it into the founder’s cup of tea.

“Why did you do that?” asked the founder.

“To improve the tea,” replied Master Lin.

“But you didn’t ask if I wanted—”

Master Lin was already walking away, dropping pebbles into everyone’s tea cups in the monastery.

That evening, the founder found his analytics dashboard replaced with a single repeating question: “Did you ask?”