Mortgaging the Future is today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0183, within the Corporate Perverse Pattern family. The core principle: today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
Today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow.
Plain-English Definition
Today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow.
Feynman Explanation
We made the number by skipping the maintenance.
Core Principle
Today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
We made the number by skipping the maintenance.
Examples
- Deferred CapEx. Skipped training. Stretched payment terms.
- Decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: we made the number by skipping the maintenance. Every element in the Incentives dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible. It is amplified whenever decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible. Inside organizations that shows up as decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to track maintenance debt as visibly as financial debt. The test of any redesign here is simple: after the change, can you name what the organization is now doing less of? If not, the payoff structure did not actually move.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Track maintenance debt as visibly as financial debt.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Track maintenance debt as visibly as financial debt.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Earn-outs designed to retain founders often demotivate the team they bought.
Funnels rewarded for new logos under-invest in retention and lifetime value.
Cuts that lift margin this quarter erode product quality and brand equity over years.
Narrowly tied bonuses get gamed; people optimize the metric, not the underlying goal.
Re-hires often get raises larger than internal promotions.
Pay tied to stock price encourages short-term price management.
CEO pay tied to size rewards deal-making even when acquisitions destroy value.
Sales forecasts under-set to ensure attainment bonus.
Capital tied to growth rates funds unsustainable scaling and unit-economics denial.
Managers measured by team size grow teams beyond need.
Awards reward visible novelty; quiet excellence goes unrecognized.
Innovation programs designed to signal innovation, not to produce it.
Where Mortgaging the Future is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- Field guideIncentives: definition, types, examples
The parent field guide for this element.
- ReferenceThe laws of incentives
Goodhart, Campbell, and the Cobra Effect.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
The measurement failure mode for this element.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- CourseIncentives 101
The free ten-part primer on reading a payoff structure.
Questions about Mortgaging the Future
- What is Mortgaging the Future?
- Mortgaging the Future is today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow. It sits in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-INC-0183, within the Corporate Perverse Pattern family. The core principle: today's metrics achieved by quietly borrowing from tomorrow. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Mortgaging the Future?
- Decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-INC-0183).
- How is Mortgaging the Future exploited?
- Decay accumulates invisibly until it isn't invisible.
- How do you design around Mortgaging the Future?
- Track maintenance debt as visibly as financial debt.
- Which behavioral dimension does Mortgaging the Future belong to?
- Mortgaging the Future is classified in the Incentives dimension (INC) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Corporate Perverse Pattern", class "Perverse Incentive". Its permanent identifier is HBT-INC-0183 and its evidence grade is C.