The text discusses two models for evaluating technology costs - Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). While ROI focuses on financial return, TCO factors in all deployment and operation costs. However, neither model provides a complete picture alone. Confluent combines both ROI and TCO with an additional factor: speed to market. Deploying Apache Kafka presents challenges that can be mitigated by using fully managed services like Confluent Cloud, which allows organizations to shift resources to higher-value tasks. The text also discusses the importance of risk costs and how a Monte Carlo simulation can model a range of outcomes for ROI calculations. By combining speed to market, TCO, and ROI, one gets a complete view into the savings provided by fully managed services like Confluent Cloud.