Best vs. Rest explained

https://www.svpg.com/best-vs-rest-explained/

Steve Jobs argues that for most established companies, innovation is simply not at the core of their DNA. He argues that once they have established their business, the focus of the company quickly moves to sales and marketing:

“I have my own theory about why the decline happens … The company does a great job … in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.”

Since growth is based on sales and marketing, it is the successful sales and marketing people that get recognized, rewarded and promoted, and soon enough, they are the ones running the company.

It’s worth noting that the old P&G model of brand manager as product manager fit well in that model because that role was famously about pricing, packaging, positioning and promotion.

In any case, engineers and designers can either accept their secondary role, or they can move to a company that believes its success is dependent on consistent innovation.

When viewed through this lens, it is remarkable how many companies you can identify that lost their product mojo when they replaced their product-oriented founder with a so-called “professional” CEO, either coming from sales or marketing, or business development (when they think acquisitions are the key to growth), or finance (when they think managing costs is their key to growth).

The reason this explanation resonates so well with me is that I have known many of these CEO’s, and in most cases, it’s clear to me they are very smart people, but all too often they show so little interest, beyond lip service, in the machinery of consistent innovation.

Steve Jobs is essentially describing the natural selection that occurs at companies where growth is not viewed as a function of product innovation.