The Evidence Base

This book argues that representations should be tested against primary records, so its own figures are held to that standard here. Each entry lists the claim made in the text, the primary document behind it, and any caveat a careful reader should know, including who funded the research. Tier 1 entries are regulatory orders, statutory inquiries, audit reports, and securities filings; their figures are measurements. Tier 2 entries are published research with stated methods; their figures calibrate estimates. The composite vignettes carry no figures that are not bracketed by these sources. Where a source is vendor-sponsored, that is stated, because provenance is part of the evidence. Two practitioner-grade datasets that bear on the same argument, METR's controlled trials of AI-assisted developer productivity and GitClear's analysis of code quality at scale, are carried in the companion volume Illusions of Work rather than here, where the board-level case is made from the documented cases and research above.

TSB (Chapters 6, 8, 17). The book cites a migration cost of roughly 330 million against a combined regulatory fine of 48.65 million, a ratio of about 1:7. The fine is the FCA Final Notice and the PRA Final Notice, both dated 20 December 2022 ( 29.75 million and 18.9 million respectively). The cost figure is 330.2 million in post-migration charges disclosed in TSB Banking Group's 2018 Annual Report and Accounts. Caveat: the 330.2 million is the gross 2018 charge; TSB later recognised a partial recovery against it.

Post Office Horizon (Chapters 8, Conclusion). The book states that the Post Office prosecuted around seven hundred of its own subpostmasters, that the statutory inquiry estimated roughly a thousand convictions across the United Kingdom on Horizon evidence, and that the inquiry found employees knew or should have known the system was capable of error. Source: Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry, Final Report Volume 1, published 8 July 2025 (226 days of hearings; around 274,604 documents disclosed), and the inquiry's summary. Caveat: the Chair states the precise number prosecuted and convicted cannot be established with certainty; further report volumes were still to be published at the time of writing.

Knight Capital (Chapter 8). The book cites a pre-tax loss of approximately 440 million dollars over forty-five minutes, with new code on seven of eight servers and a dormant routine on the eighth. The 440 million dollar figure is Knight Capital Group's own Form 8-K of 2 August 2012. The deployment detail, the reactivated “Power Peg” code, the more than four million executions, and the higher loss figure of over 460 million dollars are from the SEC Administrative Proceeding order, In the Matter of Knight Capital Americas LLC (16 October 2013), which also imposed a 12 million dollar penalty under the Market Access Rule. Caveat: the company figure (440 million) and the SEC figure (460 million) differ; the body uses the company's own number. The four-million figure is executions, not orders.

Southwest Airlines (Chapter 7). The book cites more than sixteen thousand seven hundred cancelled flights, a self-disclosed financial impact above 1.1 billion dollars, and the largest consumer-protection penalty in US aviation history. Cancellations are from Southwest's Form 8-K of 6 January 2023; the financial impact is the sum of pre-tax figures disclosed across the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023; the 140 million dollar penalty is the US Department of Transportation consent order of 18 December 2023, described by the Department as thirty times larger than any previous consumer-protection penalty. The pre-collapse warning is documented in the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association's open letter of 13 April 2022 and in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing of 9 February 2023. Caveat: in December 2025 the Department waived the final 11 million dollar instalment as a credit; the penalty's size at imposition is the cited fact.

Birmingham City Council (Chapters 6, 17). The book cites an original business case of 19 million, an auditor's finding that go-live was approved without assessing testing results, a forecast cost above 144 million, an independent estimate above 216 million, and an effective bankruptcy. Source: Grant Thornton's report in the public interest on the ERP implementation (11 February 2025); the council's own written answer of January 2026 ( 144.4 million forecast to 2027/28); and the Audit Reform Lab, University of Sheffield (August 2024, 216.5 million total impact including roughly 69 million of written-off savings). Caveat: figures are current as of early 2026 and still moving; the council's section 114 notice of September 2023 was driven primarily by equal-pay liabilities, with the ERP failure treated by the auditor as a contributory factor. “Effective” is load-bearing: a council cannot legally become insolvent.

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