Notable Quotes
"A failure is actually a test that was badly set up, wrong metrics, created many biases like sampling biases. All the other tests are opportunities to learn."
"My goal is always to have a learning rate of 100%, meaning that we don't have failed tests."
"We started creating this engine, we call it Inspire, and surprise, at the beginning, it was completely losing against the world leader of recommendations."
"Strategy is key when we are doing experimentation, but at the same time, we need to do it in multiple and small, quick learning iterations."
"We all have a tool belt of experimental tools that you can use. All of them are valid. We just need to understand the different capabilities of them and their limitations."
Takeaways
A center of excellence should enable, not execute. Farfetch's central team shrank while experiment volume grew, because its job is coaching.
Strategic bets deserve a longer clock than fail fast allows. Farfetch iterated on Inspire for two years before it replaced the market leader.
JavaScript injection tools carry hidden costs: broken pages, inconsistent results, and rework to reclaim your own data for deep dives.
