Three different averages. They can give wildly different answers — and the one you pick says more about your argument than the data does.
Calculators do the heavy lifting, but knowing what is going on underneath is what saves you money — or stress — later. Three different averages. They can give wildly different answers — and the one you pick says more about your argument than the data does.
Sum / count. Sensitive to outliers. Use when data is roughly symmetric.
Middle value when sorted. Resistant to outliers. Use for skewed data (salaries, house prices).
Most common value. Use for categorical data or peak finding.
Salaries in a 10-person startup: 9 people earn $60k, founder earns $1M. Mean ≈ $154k. Median = $60k. Mode = $60k.
Can a dataset have multiple modes? Yes — called bimodal, trimodal, etc.
When does mean = median = mode? Only in a perfectly symmetric distribution (e.g., normal).
Bookmark the calculator linked above — you will need it more often than you think.