Precision Bias

You're seeing it when a startup's pitch deck shows revenue projections to the penny for Year 3. The granularity implies certainty that doesn't exist, and investors who should know better still anchor on the specific numbers.

You're seeing it when a strategy presentation estimates the addressable market as "$7.83 billion" rather than "roughly $8 billion." The decimal places add no information but dramatically increase perceived credibility.

Present forecasts as ranges, not point estimates. When your model says $4.2M, say "between $3.5M and $5M." You'll lose the veneer of certainty but gain credibility with anyone who understands how forecasting actually works — which includes the investors you want.

Bezos repeatedly emphasised that being "roughly right" matters more than being "precisely wrong." Amazon's planning culture favoured directional accuracy over false precision — using narratives and six-page memos rather than spreadsheet-heavy presentations that implied certainty where none existed. Bezos understood that precise-looking projections create two dangers: they discourage exploration of alternative scenarios, and they anchor teams on specific numbers that feel authoritative but aren't. His insistence on written narratives forced leaders to articulate assumptions and uncertainties in prose, where false precision is harder to hide than in a spreadsheet cell. For founders, the principle is clear: match your confidence intervals to your actual knowledge, and distrust any number that looks more precise than your inputs justify.