> There seemed to be no time given to "how to make a great product", likely because this is something that can't be taught
It can be taught, but the general principles are weak (it’s basically “how to be an effective futurist”), with most of the useful knowledge being domain-specific.
And the thing with the specific domains is, either they’re not understood yet—in which case everyone is flailing around—or they are well-understood—in which case the market has already consolidated around the companies who can best operationalize the set of techniques required to create great products for that market, and the best you’ll hope to do is to get bought out by one of them, not to compete or replace them.
Because, in the end, having a great product is a multiplier, but so is execution; and execution provides compound interest on its gains, such that corporations inevitably execute exponentially better as they age.
In other words, the only time where you can set out to win a market, and actually have a hope of doing so, is precisely when we don’t yet know how to operationalize the production of great products for that domain.
It can be taught, but the general principles are weak (it’s basically “how to be an effective futurist”), with most of the useful knowledge being domain-specific.
And the thing with the specific domains is, either they’re not understood yet—in which case everyone is flailing around—or they are well-understood—in which case the market has already consolidated around the companies who can best operationalize the set of techniques required to create great products for that market, and the best you’ll hope to do is to get bought out by one of them, not to compete or replace them.
Because, in the end, having a great product is a multiplier, but so is execution; and execution provides compound interest on its gains, such that corporations inevitably execute exponentially better as they age.
In other words, the only time where you can set out to win a market, and actually have a hope of doing so, is precisely when we don’t yet know how to operationalize the production of great products for that domain.