Close Enough Counts

Estimation is the skill of getting approximately right answers fast, without exact calculation. The physicist Enrico Fermi was legendary at it, famous for cracking questions that seemed to have no available data using nothing but logic and rough numbers.

Estimation is not random guessing. It is structured reasoning — you break a big unknown into smaller pieces you can approximate, then combine them. Each piece may be off, but the errors often cancel out.

The skill matters because most real decisions cannot wait for perfect data. Investors and engineers estimate before they calculate, and the best estimators outperform those who wait.