Define: "HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)" in Business
Catastrophic fiscal burn
"Stop wasting nights building data models for executives who decide by gut feel. Present two options—the one you want and an obviously terrible decoy—so they feel in control."
An agile and product-management critique describing a decision-making dynamic where senior leadership relies on executive intuition over empirical data.
What does "HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)" actually mean?
"Throwing six months of engineering telemetryTelemetryA firehose of completely unreadable syslog data that eats all your storage space and is only checked after the network has already crashed. and user research into the incinerator because an executive's spouse didn't like the button color."
"To avoid sub-optimal outcomes, organizational leadership must balance the HiPPO effect against frontline customer analytics."
"We ran 40 A/B tests proving the new checkout flow worked, and then the HiPPO walked in and killed it in three minutes."
By The Chief Waste Officer
18 years in the corporate trenches quantifying waste so you don't have to.
Related Terminology
Tired of hearing this?
Next time someone says "HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)" in a meeting, track exactly how much company money they just wasted. Play Buzzword Bingo, generate a waste invoice, and stop the bleeding.
