# Absurd Valuations By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-02-06 Organizations are currently programmed to maximize monetary efficiency. Regardless of for-profit or not-for-profit tax status, all organizations seem to exist within this paradigm. The free market ideal forces the optimization to happen along any metric the world collectively feels is important. At the moment, policies that reduce everything into a monetary unit are important. A hamburger is $5, your time is worth $35/hr, and your untimely death is worth $500k. This view is useful in many ways, but it's easy to see how organizations quickly lose touch with their composite humanity. Math and unit economics are poor substitutes for love, friendship, and comradery. Yet, there are creative ways to put a price on engaged employees and being happily married. Engaged employees will generate ten times more monetary value, and being happily married increases a person's lifespan so they can continue to subscribe to your product. Thus, we trick ourselves into believing that this monetary unit paradigm is the height of goodness for the world. If we place a price on it, we can optimize and improve it. However, all models are wrong, and some are useful. The current model is the product of the enlightenment developed hundreds of years ago. Certainly, other models can and do exist that look at things differently. The question is whether math and unit economics should continue to reign as the key driver in organizations. Perhaps we don't throw out the entire idea but merge it with another that thinks beyond absurd assignments of economic value. Sometimes doing something is just the right thing to do, regardless of the math. Practical organizations in the future will be informed and think about these differences. As a result, they will thrive in absurd ways. #### Related Items [[Economics]] [[Value]] [[Organizational Analytics]] [[The Human Condition]] [[Solidarity]] [[Society]]