In tech, we like to believe decisions are driven by data, dashboards, and ROI. In reality, they’re driven by teams navigating fear, trust, habit, and uncertainty. Drawing from over a decade of working with companies like Meta, Amazon, and Google, this talk explores why teams over-invest in what’s easy to measure and under-invest in the open-ended curiosity that actually changes outcomes. You’ll learn how disciplined, courageous curiosity leads to better products, better decisions, and better long-term revenue—especially when the numbers can’t tell the whole story.
In my 10+ years supporting UX research at hundreds of companies, I’ve seen how an obsession with measurable ROI quietly kills good businesses.
Under pressure, teams over-invest in evaluative research that’s easy to defend, but rarely explains what truly motivates users. Usability tests optimize what exists; they don’t tell you why people care, leave, or never show up at all.
When foundational qualitative research gets deprioritized because it’s “hard to quantify,” companies increase the risk of building the wrong thing entirely. The solution isn’t even more hard data—it’s courageous curiosity: asking open-ended “why” questions and taking messy, emotional answers seriously.
Time and again, I’ve seen the same unpredictable human forces that shape user behavior also shape business decisions at every level. Leaders insist on a clear ROI, but fear, trust, habit, and instinct quietly drive what gets approved. Selling ideas, securing budget, and influencing decisions requires the same skill as understanding users: patient, open-minded curiosity.
This talk reframes curiosity as a disciplined business advantage for anyone who builds, sells, or leads. If you want better outcomes, you don’t need more certainty—you need better questions.