From the DF Archive: Should a CEO Be a Nerd About Their Company’s Products?
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2026/10/19/ternus-cook-product-nerds
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@daringfireball it’s honestly a bit more nuanced. Steve Jobs was obsessed with one number: customer satisfaction. That, however, you can measure only *after* you ship. So the “gut feeling” (I’d prefer “opinionated taste built from skilled experience”) only works until you ship. But I met plenty of people who thought their “gut feeling” rules supreme even when totally at odds with customers and often when that “gut feeling” had no merit in experience or skill whatsoever.
@daringfireball define “needs”. one must surmise that you’re saying Ternus can make gut decisions but Cook couldn’t (why? and how do we know this?). assuming that’s actually true, Apple has grown extremely successful under Cook by many metrics, including the best versions of their products…so what points to this need?
@daringfireball You can’t say “decision-making by quantifiable numbers took over” after the Vision Pro shipped under Cook’s approval. That’s an absurd decision that’s left competitors as well as die-hards scratching their heads while they search for the logic behind that move, which is going to make Cook look quite visionary the longer time marches on. Big things have small beginnings!
“Most of the things we want are illogical.” Amelia Earhart on why she flew her 1932 solo transatlantic flight