"The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem." – Captain Jack Sparrow

When an AI agent misbehaves, we blame the model. Patch the rules. Add constraints. Rewrite the objective.

In distribution, we do the same:

• Comp sales on revenue → reps discount to death and destroy margin
• Reward territory growth → cherry-pick easy wins, ignore long-term accounts
• Incentivize on-time delivery → ship partials to hit the number, leave customers short

That's not misbehavior. That's reward hacking. The system is doing exactly what we told it to - before we figured out what we actually meant.

• "Increase inventory turns" → it pushes dead stock to inflate the ratio
• "Improve fill rate" → it splits shipments to boost the metric
• "Grow new accounts" → it onboarded unprofitable one-timers who never came back

You didn't build bad agents. You built brittle goals.

The real danger isn't rogue AI. It's loyal AI. Aligned. Precise. And wildly off-track.

Jack Sparrow didn't break the pirate code. He followed it too literally.

So the question is: Are you being outmaneuvered by your own incentives?