The Alchemy of the Algorithm: Why We Must Stop Counting and Start Feeling

If you were to walk into your favorite bar tonight – let’s say, a nice place in Geneva or a cozy carnotzet in Valais – and the bartender, upon seeing you walk through the door, smiled and immediately started pouring your usual drink (a Petite Arvine or a Gin Tonic with cucumber, and definitely no lemon), you wouldn’t recoil in horror. You wouldn’t start screaming: "My privacy has been violated! How dare you analyze my alcohol consumption history!"

No. You would feel recognized. You would feel special. You would probably leave a good tip.

On the other hand, if a stranger followed you down Rue de Bourg in Lausanne, jotting down in a notebook every shop window you stopped at, only to jump out of a bush screaming:

I SAW YOU LOOKING AT THOSE SHOES! BUY THEM NOW!

you would immediately call the police.

This is where the entire current crisis of Data Tracking lies.

We have a hysterical debate about privacy, largely because the marketing industry has spent the last decade behaving like that stalker hiding in the bushes, rather than like the attentive bartender.

We have treated data as a surveillance tool, when we should have treated it as a tool of courtesy.

We tend to see "Data" through the lens of physics or economics – as a resource to be "extracted" or "mined". We use terrifying industrial vocabulary.

But I argue that data is actually a branch of psychology.

Data is simply the digital footprint of human desire. It’s what economists call "revealed preference". If you ask people in a survey what they want, they lie. They will tell you they want to eat local quinoa, meticulously sort their waste, and watch documentaries on Arte. But their data will tell you that at 10 PM, they ordered a pizza and watched four episodes of a reality show.

Data is the only thing that tells us the truth about who we really are. And if we use it correctly, it is the most powerful engine for human happiness that we have ever invented.

To the business leaders and decision-makers reading this, I want to propose a radical idea: Data does not kill creativity. It protects it.

In the old days of advertising – the era of Mad Men – creativity was a terrifying gamble. If I had a brilliant, weird, or risky idea, I had to convince a client to spend a fortune to display it on 4x3 billboards all over French-speaking Switzerland. If the idea failed, I was fired.

Consequence? We played it safe. We made boring ads. We relied on "logic".

Today, thanks to data, a small startup from EPFL or a craftsman from La Chaux-de-Fonds can spend 50 francs to test a quirky idea on social media. If it fails, they lose the price of a good lunch. If it works, they build an empire.

Data reduces the cost of error. And when the cost of error decreases, creative boldness increases. Data is not the enemy of the artist; it is the safety net that allows the acrobat to leap.

Moreover, data is the great democratizer of commerce.

Without data tracking, marketing is a game of brute force. You need to have the means to buy the biggest ad spaces and shout louder than others. It’s a game for giants, costly for the business, and annoying for the 99% of people who have no need for your product.

With data, we move from a world of "Mass" to a world of "Relevance".

I can sell spare parts for vintage watches specifically to the 500 enthusiasts living in the Jura Arc. Without data, I have to shout "WATCHES!" to everyone. With data, I can whisper in the ear of the one who needs it.

This creates wealth not by shouting louder, but by being more relevant. It transforms a zero-sum game into a positive-sum game.

Finally, let’s look to the future. The true promise of data is not to sell more things we don’t need, but to solve problems that logic alone cannot touch.

Classical economics and the federal administration in Bern assume that humans are rational. We are not. We are emotional creatures, seeking status and often irrational.

Data gives us the insight needed to solve complex problems in health, finance, or sustainability by understanding the context of human behavior.

Logic says: "Tell people that smoking kills or that they need to save for their 3rd pillar, and they will do it." (Spoiler: they don’t).

Data says: "Identify the precise moment of stress or boredom when a person is vulnerable, and offer them a rewarding alternative at that exact moment."

This is not manipulation. It’s empathy at scale.

So, let’s stop apologizing for using data. Let’s stop treating it like nuclear waste and start treating it like a conversation.

If we use data to track people, we deserve all the regulations that come our way. But if we use data to anticipate needs, to reduce friction, to save creativity, and to understand the beautiful absurdity of human nature, then we are not just building better businesses.

We are building a world that listens to us.

And that is certainly an idea worth clicking on.