Dunno, but it’s clear that Geoff never says to himself, “Maybe I’m wrong and should get more opinions from experienced users.” I know when I hired developers I wanted people that could and would say no, and knew more than me (not a high bar 
). He seems to like employees he can bully and/or wear down. Every developer that’s ever said no to him seems to have either been fired or left of their own accord after being worn down by his nonsense.
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I’ll just say CEO as Product Manager is a fantastically bad way to get a good debate about competing ideas
Joel Spolsky, and many others, have written about exactly this problem
And, in my experience, it comes down to, in many cases, “I write your cheque so we’re doing …”
Xojo wasnt the first one
I’m sure it wont be the last one either
Simply google for “why the ceo should not be the product manager”
And read …
There are LOTS more
but this one, which is dated as the author notes, has lots of relevant points about good product managers and bad product managers
Good product managers crisply define the target, the “what” (as opposed to the how) and manage the delivery of the “what.” Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure out “how”.
The majority of companies I know function this way.
That was how it was where I worked. The PM told me WHAT she wanted, and I told her HOW she would get it. Then at such time as the HOW accurately created the WHAT, it was passed to the end user
Oh sure in the end most companies are that way
But not all
Or at least not in HOW they do what they do
I have worked for some where the CEO said “I’d like to pursue this”
And set their teams off to figure out
- can we do this at all ? maybe we have to go back and say “thats not possible”
- is it practical ?
- how long is this going to take
And may other questions
(IE Jobs wanted a phone but got the iPod first - because that was possible given the tech of the day & the iPhone had to wait)
The CEO set “the goal” and that was it
Others have been more “we’re doing this and here’s how”
And proceeded to ignore any & all advice from those smart people they hired (who mostly all eventually left anyways)
Its a significant difference
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well it always comes down to this:
1st class managers always hire first class employees
2nd class managers always hire 3rd class employees
why? 'cause 2nd class managers are afraid of better 1st lass employees
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