Airbnb’s North Star Metric is nights booked. This was picked because it reflects the values of the company. It shows that both hosts and travelers are getting direct value out of the product. It acts as a proxy for revenue but leans more into the customer side of things. A team could game this by giving discounts to people who extend their stays. This could inflate the number of nights booked, but would not guarantee that people actually stay through all those nights. It could also be bad for the company economically and end up harming the company.
Facebook’s North Star Metric is 7 friends in 10 days. This is important to Facebook because of how strong network effects are for a social media site. 7 friends in 10 days seems to be a proxy for being engaged on the platform and committed to it. A team could game this by suggesting more friend matches that are lower quality (people they don’t know in real life). That would result in a less personal product that is less sticky, since you won’t feel a connection to any of your friends on the platform.
Slack’s North Star Metric is 2,000 messages sent by a team. They picked this because it shows that a team is actually using a product rather than just signing up and then abandoning the account. It’s a proxy for a team having integrated the platform into their routine. A team could game this by creating integrations that send more messages (which may not be as helpful). This would lead to the product being more bloated by useless messages and would be overwhelming to new users.
