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 overall footprint of the partnership, assessed on a 1 to 5 tier: from early-stage or niche (Tier 1) to landmark operations with billions in throughput, multiple facilities, or hundreds of research papers per year (Tier 5).
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 5 assessment of how well the partnership executes on its stated mission, incorporating leadership competency, partner alignment, and track record of results — from failed or minimal outcomes (1) to exceptional performance driven by highly capable leadership (5).
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.