Recently, I re-read Michael Lewis’ great book Moneyball, which, on the surface, is a book about baseball, and, particularly about Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland Athletics.

Lewis, who wrote books such as Liar’s Poker, Panic, and The Big Short, is clearly intrigued by fields of endeavor in which individuals succeed because they recognize the value of data when others are operating more by the seat of their pants.  Lewis described a baseball talent evaluation marketplace in which Billy Beane, who was obsessively driven by performance statistics, battled baseball scouts, managers, and coaches who tended to evaluate players based either on their visible physical and athletic skills or the performances these individuals observed.  As a result, when Beane overruled his organization and made decisions based on his statistical analyses, he tended to acquire undervalued talent and get a premium price when he disposed of overvalued talent.

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On Saturday, April 26, I watched a TV program hosted by Tim Russert. He and the commentators were reflecting on the broader implications of how an off-the-record comment by Senator Obama at a San Francisco speech could achieve worldwide exposure in a relatively short time. Their conclusion is that, at this time and irreversibly going forward, “everything is on the record.” I would add one other phrase as well: “Everything that is on the record is likely to stay on the record permanently.”

The combination of cell phone cameras, the ability to upload digital images to web sites, and the broad reach of user-generated content on sites like YouTube and Facebook mean that all of us have the potential to live our entire lives out in the open, not unlike the lead character played by Jim Carrey in “The Truman Show” a few years back. Scott McNealy, the Chairman of Sun Microsystems, made the comment almost a decade ago that, with the Internet, there is no privacy and all of us need to get over it. He’s right. (more…)