[tptacek]

He gave one example of how the numbers for 2000 Twitter jobs can scale to revenue. He hasn't done an analysis of Twitter employee eating habits; he's just injecting more numeracy into the discussion. On the other hand, a protracted argument about exactly how much lunch business Twitter employees will do is likely to harm the overall discussion more than it helps.

[rhizome]

I see, more numeracy. Let me add: 40. Fantasy numbers don't help, and "maybe the city will even out in side-effects" isn't exactly moving the discussion along, either.

[tptacek]

Just for what it's worth:

* Fantasy numbers do help when they illustrate the scale of the dollar figures we're talking about. It is helpful to measure things in "Twitter employee lunches to break even". It's actually more helpful than "$250,000" is, even though the latter number is more "factual".

* If you don't believe it matters whether the city will even out in side-effects†, you're basically arguing there's no point to discussing incentive programs. All of them are cost-benefit investments (or gambles). Make the argument that they're bad gambles, sure. But it's probably not worth making the argument that the city shouldn't try incentives; you'd be howling into the wind, since every city in the country has, in the city council and at the ballot box, decided this already.

† And, tip, which I learned here the hard way: watch out for the double quotes; they can mean, "reader, this is what the person who I'm responding to just said; would you get a load of it?". You'd be surprised how irritating this can be to people. I re-learn this at least once every couple months.