The market was the witness
For years the thing that confirmed my work was money, and money has no mood, no history with me and nothing it needs back. When the income went, the reading went with it, and what was left was people, who
cost of witness
Meaning
Attention and emotional energy are consumed by the management of how others perceive and validate work. The cost of witness is the delta between the effort required to perform a task and the total effort consumed when that task must be validated by a human audience. This occurs because the presence of an observer introduces a secondary layer of work (the management of the observer’s perception).
When the witness is a person, the cost of witness includes the hours spent explaining and justifying the work to meet their specific expectations. In a market environment, the witness is often the revenue or the user base, which provides feedback without the overhead of personal negotiation.
Social Load
Performing for an audience requires a constant monitoring of social cues and expectations. This load is especially heavy for a founder who has transitioned from a position of absolute authority to one of shared responsibility. Every interaction becomes a performance that drains the capacity needed for the work itself.
Verification Burden
The need to prove one’s value to others adds a layer of documentation and reporting that serves no other purpose. This burden increases when the observers are not experts in the field, requiring the operator to simplify and translate their actions.
Performance Decay
The quality of the output often drops when the focus shifts from the objective to the witness. In a market context, minimizing this load is a prerequisite for sustained production.