Some of these are strong, unpopular opinions.

My question in return would be, name me a single company other than Apple ( I am no longer a fan of Apple, but credit where credit's due ) that has a user or product mindset in Silicon Valley, or even border terms, in Tech ( or even non tech )? Excluding startups or companies that are still run by founders.

And so most CEOs are either tech oriented, or business oriented, i.e sales and marketing people. Where are the product people?

> "If you were a product person at IBM or Xerox, so you make a better copier or computer. So what? When you have monopoly market share, the company's not any more successful.

>So the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, and they end up running the companies. And the product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products. The product sensibility and the product genius that brought them to that monopolistic position gets rotted out by people running these companies that have no conception of a good product versus a bad product." - Steve Jobs

The first part isn't easy to understand by non-product people. If a company is making record profits. Why are they not successful? What are the inventive to further improve user experience? Or creating a better product? At the expense of additional R&D for zero bottom line benefits.

Here is another Steve Jobs quote.

>"Manage the top line: your strategy, your people, and your products, and the bottom line will follow.”

>"You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards."

Most business have their eyes on their bottom line, they forgot their culture, their product, and only cares about profits and revenue. It is the moment you start designing a product for your bottom line and not because you want to build a better product which may or may not be successful. ( There are plenty of flops at Apple )

The leadership, direction and strategy has to come from the Top. Which is contrary to popular belief that "execution eats strategy for breakfast". The original quote from Peter Drunker was “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, but Silicon Valley and VCs in the early 10s only wants their startup to execute.

Finally, something I have suspected for long but recently became my conclusion in the past 5-6 years. Relating to the last part of the first quote

>"Have no conception of a good product versus a bad product."

Or Taste. Something Silicon Valley, Tech or VC refuse to admit, and PG made a somewhat rebuttal of his past self in recent blog post.

I call these the Pepla people. Who cant taste the difference between Pepsi and Coca Cola. Then there are people who can taste the difference but cant tell which one is which, and at the very top end is someone can taste the difference between Coca Cola from different part of the world and bottling technique.

There are plenty of people wearing a product person badge, but Good taste is rarely a common thing among them. It can not be accurately measured, and hence its unpopularity in Tech. You cant do A/B testing. You have to somewhat rely on your intuition.

>"Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion". - Steve Jobs