“You make what you measure.”

This, according to Paul Graham, is the single most important principle in Silicon Valley. It means that whatever metric you track, it will tend to improve.

It’s also exactly what is wrong with Silicon Valley.

Given Paul’s self-proclaimed status as a “manufacturer of economic inequality” or, effectively, a “maker of rich people,” it’s pretty clear what measure he’s been tracking all these years, the mighty $dollah $dollah bill y’all.

So then is it any surprise that an “assembler of affluence” would be unapologetic about printing massive pools of cash?

Of course not, that is the metric that he and his fellow investors have been “making through their measures” for decades now.

And you know what? That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

To his point, there’s nothing inherently wrong with creation of wealth per se, when done in a non-zero sum fashion.

So where have things gone so awry?

Why do Paul and Vivek Wadhwa feel like they’re being persecuted for having a couple extra zero’s in their bank accounts?

To shed some light on this, let’s roll the video tape:

There’s a reason why the “making the world a better place” trope on the show Silicon Valley hits home.

Because everyone knows that it’s a falsehood that rings so true.

I would venture a bet (no pun intended) that even the most wonkish of Silicon insiders lol’ed at each of those jokes. I sure did.

But within this humorous truth is a key in understanding the huge disconnect between the would-be defenders and would-be detractors of economic inequality.

Apparently unbeknownst to Paul and his crew, they aren’t fighting the right battle. They’re not even in the right zip code.

Paul and Vivek seem to think this is an issue of class (“Why has it become bad to be rich?”).

It’s not. It’s an issue of values, both numerical and philosophical.

Paul and Vivek seem to think they are being persecuted based on their wealth.

They’re not, they’re being rejected based on their principles.

How could this be? Because being rich does not, in fact, make you a bad guy. If it were you would be able to extrapolate a judgment about someone’s character based on their bank statement which clearly you cannot.

You can however extrapolate a judgment based on someone’s actions and their words. So let’s take a look at those instead.

As Paul says with regards to measures, “you have to choose the right number, because only the one you choose will improve.” All the while, he espouses the worldview that things are not a zero-sum game like the detractors of economic inequality would have you believe.

So why then, can you only focus on one number if you want to improve it?

Perhaps because there is one vital resource in this universe that is inherently and absolutely limited in nature.

That precious resource is our collective creative energies.

Said another way, our collective reason for living. Try as we might, humans are not as good at multi-tasking as we would like to believe. As Paul says himself, generally, we only have the ability to meaningfully improve on one thing at a time.

So Paul would have us believe that it is human nature for us to spend this most precious of resources, our lives, on running up the scores on our bank accounts. It is almost a “no-brainer,” he seems to imply, that “non-lazy” and “determined” people will want to get rich.

In this sense, I almost feel sorry for Paul. To think that the only goal worth having in life is to generate wealth (because, you know, “Who would start a business if they couldn’t get rich?”) is a sad way to live or at least a rather pessimistic worldview to hold.

Instead, I choose to reject, not Paul’s wealth, but certainly his values, because if I had one number to choose, one measure to track in my life, it would not be wealth per se.

What would it be then?

As if sensing this issue in his periphery, Paul asks how novel it would feel to think about a healthy society with great variation in wealth. “What would it look like?” he ponders.

Well Paul, here’s a hint.

Let’s use the example of the woodworker that is highlighted in the essay.

I would argue that, in contrast to a venture capitalist and indeed Paul’s very own example, a truly exceptional woodworker would never choose wealth as his single most important measure.

Instead, I believe a truly skilled artisan is concerned only with measuring the quality of his craft.

As such, if more of our precious creative energies were spent on measuring the quality of our crafts rather than the depths of our riches, I think the saying “making the world a better place” would no longer be funny.

It would be true.