[rhizome]

Yes, the purpose was to measure the unmeasurable, which, since it's impossible by definition, created the secondary effects you describe.

For details on the daily workings of stack ranking at Microsoft, the venerated Mini Microsoft is still up and available in all it's 15 year old glory. It's one of the true documents of contemporary tech work, and I'm glad it isn't just buried in archive.org (long live archive.org).

http://minimsft.blogspot.com/

Go back to the first couple years and you'll be soaking in it.