Legacy Liability L_legacy · Ch 9P × (1+r)^t. The cheapest option always looks expensive today. Show them what doing nothing costs.
Worked example — The cost of changing nothing
A legacy estate costing $2.5M a year today, growing about 17% annually as the people who understood it retire and the workarounds accumulate. Look five years out.
It came out at $5.48M/yr by year five, doubling in 4.4 years. Red.
That's roughly $15,000 a day of doing nothing. Nobody approves a $3M project. Plenty of people approve stopping a $15,000-a-day bleed. It is the same slide with arithmetic on it instead of ambition.
▸ MegaCorp one-sheet ($15,017/day)
Your turn — change one number
Result $5.48M/yr
Red. Doubles in 4.4 years. That's $15,017/day of inaction — the fire under the chair.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 < 1.15× · 🟡 1.15–1.40× · 🔴 ≥ 1.40× (and read the 3/5/10-year projection — anything that doubles inside 5 years is RED).
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Self-Funding Coefficient S_fc · Ch 9(Human cost − AI cost) ÷ pilot cost. Above 10 the CFO is negligent not to buy.
Worked example — Three contractors and an invoice queue
Most of their week goes on invoice matching — about $600K a year fully loaded. The automated version costs $120K a year to run. A pilot that proves it costs $60K.
It came out at 8.0. Green — well past the 2.5 line where it pays for itself.
Below 1 you are asking the CFO for a favour. Above 2.5 you are pointing at arithmetic. If you're sitting at 0.8, don't sharpen the deck — go back to the person with the problem and widen the use case until the numerator moves.
Your turn — change one number
Result 8.00
Green. Pays for itself. Pitch the CFO.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 ≥ 2.5 (pays for itself) · 🟢🟢 ≥ 10 (CFO is negligent not to buy) · 🟡 1–2.5 · 🔴 < 1 (don't pitch the CFO yet).
⌁ ask what this number means for me
Vaporware Index I_v · Ch 10Adjectives in the pitch ÷ live demo minutes. Works both ways — score yourself.
Worked example — Scoring your own last pitch
Count the adjectives in the deck — seamless, intelligent, transformative, enterprise-grade. There are 28. Now count the minutes of live, working software on screen. There are four.
It came out at 7.0. Red — slides, not software.
Eight adjectives and twelve minutes of the thing actually running reads 0.67: green. This one works in both directions. Run it on the vendor pitching you, then be honest and run it on yourself.
Your turn — change one number
Result 7.00
Red. Slides, not software. If it's your pitch: fix it. If it's theirs: run.
Book's benchmark: 🟢 < 1 · 🟡 1–3 · 🔴 > 3 (slides, not software).
⌁ ask what this number means for me From the module
ZERO dumps the 22-slide deck at slide 3 and hands CFO Richard Park one sheet: cost of inaction, $12,290/day, $4.49M/yr. "Why hasn't anyone shown me this before?" Then FutureCorp inbound — buzzword soup, Zombie Score 0. She sends the Breakup Email; three days later the real VP calls, Score 59.
Re-read Calculus for Cowards & The Qualification Protocol →