Ford Pinto

The Ford Pinto launched in 1971 with a fuel tank behind the rear axle that testing showed could rupture in rear-end collisions. A baffle to reduce the risk cost an estimated $11 per car. An internal analysis, later surfaced in litigation, weighed the cost of the fix against the projected payout on injury and death claims, using a dollar figure for a human life borrowed from another regulatory context. The math pointed one way. Ford shipped without the fix, and then journalist Mark Dowie published the memo.

This case sharpens something subtler than a villain story: how the way you frame a decision quietly decides which answers count as valid. A rigorous-looking analysis can make the wrong call look correct. Open the app to examine which choices in your own business you are running as pure optimization problems, and what the frame leaves out.