Ranking System
The Significance Rating
Each partnership receives a Significance Rating from 0 to 100 based on three dimensions: scale, longevity, and effectiveness. Effectiveness factors in leadership competency, partner alignment, and track record of results. Scores are built on ordinal assessments rather than dollar estimates.
Scale
The partnership's observable footprint on a 1 to 5 tier. Reference anchors are: Tier 1 niche or pilot scale; Tier 2 modest single-site or program scale; Tier 3 established mid-scale operations; Tier 4 large national, multi-site, or high-output platforms; Tier 5 landmark-scale operations. Annual economic value and research output inform the assessment as reference evidence, but are not mechanically converted into the tier.
Longevity
How long the partnership has been active. Longer-running partnerships earn accelerating returns, meaning a venture that survives 20 years scores significantly higher than one that lasts 5. The score reaches its maximum at 25 years. Terminated partnerships receive a 25% discount.
Effectiveness
A 1 to 10 evidence-based assessment of execution against the partnership's stated mission. Scores 1-2 indicate little meaningful operationalization or severe failure; 3-4 material underperformance or retrenchment; 5-6 early, mixed, or basically adequate execution; 7-8 durable results and repeated delivery; 9 exceptional scaled performance; and 10 landmark, category-defining execution. External termination is not automatically treated as poor execution because longevity is scored separately.
Why Ordinal, Not Cardinal
Rather than estimating a precise dollar figure for every partnership and feeding it into a formula, we assess each partnership's scale on a 1 to 5 tier. A Tier 5 landmark operation like Tesla Shanghai scores the same whether its throughput is $18 billion or $21 billion, because the exact number doesn't change its significance.
The Significance Rating is designed to be robust, transparent, and defensible. It prioritizes assessments that humans can make with high confidence over precise numerical estimates that may be unreliable.
Economic Value figures are displayed as contextual information on partnership pages, but they are not used in the significance rating.