Sunday Musings The Telemetry Advantage

**Apparently I forgot to hit publish last week. SO here it is. Also working this weeks.

Happy Sunday Friends!

Hello Friends! Here is 1 quote I’m musing on this week, 2 ideas, 3 of my favorite things from the week, and 1 question.

If you find this useful, forward it to a friend or your team—and start a dialogue. I’d love to hear what it sparks.

Preface: Last week’s article felt good to me, and it seems many others also liked it. So, I’m going to see about continuing it as a three- or four-part series. Let’s see if I can come up with a snappy title.

One Quote I’m Musing

“Without data, you're just another person with an opinion.”

| W. Edwards Deming

📡 On Feedback Loops and Intuition

There’s a moment in Formula 1 that gets me like no other—and it’s not the checkered flag.

It’s when the team calls the change their stop strategy—not based on instinct, but on telemetry.

The car’s numbers look good. Tire degradation. Brake temps are holding, driver feels confident.

And crucially—other teams who’ve already committed to two stops? They’re losing time.

The decision isn’t just a guess. It’s a judgment—backed by internal data and external observation.

That’s telemetry in action.
And that’s the kind of real-time clarity we need—not just in racing, but in security, leadership, and innovation.

⚙️ From Racing to Real Life: The Role of Telemetry in High-Performance Systems

We love the myth of the visionary leader who “just knows.”
Gut instinct. Founder flair. The genius move.

In reality:
Vision gets you started. Telemetry is what keeps you on track.

We talk about “detection,” “observability,” and “feedback loops.” But they’re all pointing toward the same thing:

You can’t protect—or improve—what you can’t see.

Whether it’s a zero-day vulnerability slipping through blind spots, a product failing silently, or a team burning out without warning signs—lack of telemetry costs you.

Instinct needs to be backed by information flow. Otherwise, you’re not leading—you’re guessing.

Whether you’re securing a system or scaling a product, the questions are the same:

• What are we really seeing?

• What’s happening under the surface?

• Where are we blind?

That’s why high-performing systems (and teams) are built on visibility.

🛠️ Telemetry Is the Terrain

Visibility isn’t a luxury—it’s a prerequisite. You can’t detect, respond, or defend if you’re not capturing the right signals. Just having controls and tools in place doesn’t mean you’re using them correctly. It’s like having an F1 car with a painted-on speedometer and calling it “instrumentation.”

That means:

• Log everything—but prioritize what matters

• Instrument your endpoints, cloud, CI/CD pipeline—not just the perimeter

• Pull telemetry from identity, network, device, and behavior

• Correlate across sources and systems in real-time

Because the breach doesn’t announce itself.
It whispers. It moves laterally. It waits for your blind spot.

And your only real defense?

Knowing what’s happening. As it’s happening.

💡 Feedback Loops Make Innovation Safer—and Smarter

Telemetry isn’t just about detection. It’s about direction.

F1 teams don’t just monitor performance—they use telemetry to adjust strategy on the fly. Push here. Ease off there. Pit to cover, pit to force others to cover, or risk it.

In the tech world, this looks like:

• Product teams using real-time usage data to shape roadmap decisions

• DevSecOps loops that surface deployment risks before they reach prod

• Founders adjusting messaging based on early customer engagement patterns

• Team leads noticing energy drops and recalibrating project loads

The faster you get signal, the sooner you can steer.

And better decisions—made sooner—mean fewer recoveries, fewer reverts, and more wins.

🧭 Four Ideas to Build Telemetry Advantage

1. Instrument Before You Accelerate
Don’t wait until the system fails. In racing and in business, your metrics should be live before the engine revs.

2. Map the Mission-Critical Flows
Not all telemetry is equal. Track what matters: identity paths, data flows, third-party dependencies, and cognitive load.

3. Make It Visible to Humans
If no one sees the dashboard, it doesn’t matter. Surface the right insights to the right people—before it’s too late.

4. Embed Feedback Into the Culture
Telemetry isn’t just tooling—it’s team dynamics. Ask better questions. Debrief intentionally. Normalize reflection.

Two Ideas From Me

1. Figure out how to close the gap between what you believe is working and what actually is. Guess less—they measure more

2. What you can see, you can plan for. What you can measure, you can improve. The unknown is what breeds burnout, hesitation, and waste. Visibility reduces fear.

Three Favorite Things This Week

1. Video: How Mercedes Changed Strategy Mid-Race with Telemetry
   Breakdown of how one call—based on data, not drama—shifted the outcome of the race. → [Watch]

2. Tool of the Week: Grafana Loki
   Lightweight log aggregation built for speed, not stress. Great for real-time visibility across distributed environments. → [Explore]

3. Quote: “If you don’t know what port you’re sailing to, no wind is favorable.”
   | Seneca
   The clearest case for visibility. It’s been living in the back of my mind this week.

A Question for the Week Ahead

Where in your work—or your life—are you still guessing?
And what’s the smallest piece of telemetry you could add to help you steer instead of react?

Reply and let me know—what signals are missing from your dashboard right now?

If this sparked something, share it with a teammate or a fellow builder. Ask them:
What’s your telemetry system look like these days?

Have a wonderful week,

I’ll see you Sunday.
​-e