“Back when I started out as an equity analyst, in the days when mobile operators were sexy disruptive growth companies, my boss was very fond of comparing the number of customers per employee at fixed and mobile networks. People from fixed networks used to complain about this comparison, saying that it was unfair, because they needed lots of people to maintain the copper line network that a mobile network didn’t need because it didn’t have one.

And my boss would reply “yes, it’s an unfair comparison, but it’s a relevant one”.”

This story reminded me of a time when I was involved in a project comparing a live product with a prototype. Some involved were heavily invested in the prototype succeeding, and argued that it was not fair to test the usability of the prototype against the live product that people already knew how to use. Most of us will remember being frustrated as children to have been told that “life isn’t fair”, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Often the reality of the situation is that it is unfair. As Evans says, that’s what makes it interesting.