Big companies have trouble with innovation. Innovation is about bad ideas, or ideas that look like bad ideas. That's the fundamental thing.
Ben HorowitzRead
It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Product strategy involves innovators determining what products to create instead of relying on customers to dictate their needs.
In the quote, Ben Horowitz emphasizes the crucial role of innovators in product strategy, stating that it is their responsibility to identify and develop the right products based on insight and vision, rather than waiting for customers to express their desires. This perspective shifts the focus from customer-driven development to innovator-led exploration, suggesting that true innovation requires proactive decision-making and creativity from those in charge.
Themes
Product StrategyInnovationCustomer NeedsBusinessVision
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a presentation about product development strategies.
More from Ben Horowitz
All quotes →As a company gets big, the information that informs decision-making gets massive. Depending upon the prism through which you view the business, your perspective will vary. If two people are in charge, this variance will cause conflict and delay.
Ben HorowitzRead
You read these management books that say, 'These are the hard things about running a company.' But those aren't really the hard things. The hard things are when you have to layoff half your company, or you have to fire your best friend. Or you have to figure out a way not to go bankrupt.
Ben HorowitzRead
Look - this is the terror of being a founder & CEO. It is all your fault. Every decision, every person you hire, every dumb thing you buy or do - ultimately, you're at the end.
Ben HorowitzRead
Nobody knows how to be a CEO. It's something you have to learn. It's a very lonely job.
Ben HorowitzRead
As long as people are clear on what they need to do and what's going on, you're very likely to succeed. When nobody is clear, then you're guaranteed to fail.
Ben HorowitzRead
Similar quotes
Our model is to develop each business separately with its own shareholder and management - this way we can concentrate on the job in hand, rather than be part of some enormous and faceless conglomerate.
Richard BransonRead
If you go to a venture firm, what you're doing is you're buying money from them in exchange for equity. They have a commodity that they're selling and they have to differentiate themselves.
Naval RavikantRead
One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.
Edward AbbeyRead
If you are a new startup company, try not to arouse the interest or suspicion of your competition; especially if they are a bigger company. They can crush you while you are still in your startup phase. Lie low while still strengthening your bottom line.
Richard BransonRead
In the final analysis, finding a way to do clean business and not to pay bribes actually improves your bottom line.
Mo IbrahimRead
Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.
Warren BuffettRead