#161 - Neil Hoyne: What Data Can’t Tell You About Strategy

Outthinkers · 2026-02-24 · 42 min

Episode notes

Neil Hoyne is Chief Strategist at Google and one of the sharpest voices on how companies actually make decisions when data, intuition, and organizational politics collide. He works at the intersection of strategy, analytics, and customer value, helping leaders think more clearly about what metrics mean, how to use them, and where they can quietly mislead. He is also the author of Converted and is currently working on a new book exploring how strategy frameworks can be applied to careers and life decisions. Most leaders say they want to be data-driven. But in practice, many organizations still use data to confirm what they already believe, delay hard choices, or create the appearance of rigor without real clarity. At the same time, teams are drowning in more information than ever, while AI is making data gathering and analysis faster, cheaper, and easier to commoditize. The harder challenge now is not collecting data - it’s creating the conditions for better decisions. In this episode, we explore how strategy should be defined in an uncertain world, why customer-centric thinking changes the role of marketing, and how leaders can avoid mistaking metrics for truth.

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