Introduction:
Bill Campbell, former CEO of Intuit and chairman of the board since 1998, rarely grants interviews. He prefers to work behind the scenes and through people, taking no credit for his accomplishments. Brad Smith, who has been coached by Bill for 10 years, considers himself still at the bottom of the class.

An Awesome Product:
Brad starts with an easy question: What product or service has impressed Bill the most? Bill mentions the iPod, which he saw as a revolutionary product that changed the way people listen to music. He also praises the iPhone for its seamless integration of hardware, software, and services.

The Importance of Design:
Bill emphasizes the importance of design in creating an awesome product. He believes that design is not just about aesthetics but also about functionality and usability. He shares an anecdote about Steve Jobs’ obsession with the details of product design, even down to the packaging.

The Role of Empathy:
Bill stresses the importance of empathy in product development. He believes that great products are created by people who understand the needs and desires of their customers. He shares an example from Intuit, where the team spent time with customers to understand their pain points and frustrations.

The Power of Simplicity:
Bill advocates for simplicity in product design. He believes that products should be easy to use and understand. He cites the example of the iPod, which was praised for its simple and intuitive interface.

iPhone as a Breakthrough Product:
Bill Campbell highlights the iPhone as one of the greatest breakthroughs, revolutionizing user interaction and transforming everyday tasks. He emphasizes the seamless screen-to-screen transitions and intuitive user interface that set the iPhone apart. Campbell expresses his awe at the iPhone’s capabilities and its impact on his life, considering it a product that has yet to be surpassed in terms of innovation.

Brad Smith’s Experience with Massage Seats:
Smith shares a personal anecdote about his purchase of a Mercedes with performance seats that provided a massage function. He initially felt dissonance over the expense, but the luxurious experience of the massaging seats changed his perspective. Smith now considers performance seats a must-have feature in his cars, highlighting the importance of comfort and personalization in product design.

Sergey Brin’s Google Glass and the Future of Wearables:
Campbell discusses Google Glass, a groundbreaking product that brings computing capabilities to eyeglasses. He emphasizes the potential of wearables to become as ubiquitous and essential as cell phones. Campbell believes that Google Glass and similar devices represent a new frontier in consumer technology, offering a more intimate and interactive user experience.

Environmental Factors for Creating Great Products:
Campbell stresses the importance of great people in creating innovative products. He acknowledges that engineering talent is crucial but emphasizes the need for a diverse team with a variety of skills and perspectives. Campbell believes that a supportive and collaborative environment is essential for fostering creativity and driving innovation within a company.

The World of Product Creation:
The focus of today’s world is on product creation, primarily driven by engineers. A true understanding of the application of technology and its effective use is crucial for engineers. A company’s success depends on engineers who can think creatively and apply technology to improve products.

Jack Dorsey’s Example:
Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Square, exemplifies an engineer’s ability to transform existing technology into something immensely useful. He developed a tracking system for taxicabs, leading to his involvement in the company’s operations and eventually becoming the CEO.

The Failure of IBM’s Clones:
During the rise of personal computers, Microsoft and IBM collaborated, and clones of their products emerged. These clones hired IBM sales representatives to run their companies, but they lacked the respect of engineers and failed to drive technological innovation.

The Importance of Engineers in Silicon Valley:
Silicon Valley values engineers who can understand and apply technology, leading to the development of great products. Product managers, like Jack Dorsey and Steve Jobs, play a crucial role in refining and editing these products based on customer requirements and market analysis.

The Evolution of Technology:
Product managers guide the evolution of technology by understanding customer needs and industry trends. This guidance helps companies stay competitive and maintain market share.

The Supporting Role of Other Functions:
In Silicon Valley, everything revolves around great products, and other functions serve as supporting roles. Logistics, manufacturing, and affordability play essential roles in delivering products to end-users.

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Engineers:
Entrepreneurial engineers are innovative and understand the problem, coming up with multiple solutions. Product managers and general managers should avoid dictating specific features to engineers, as this stifles creativity and innovation.

The Culture of Silicon Valley:
Silicon Valley’s culture encourages technical people to create products based on their understanding and vision. Product managers refine and guide these products, but the idea originates from strong technical individuals.

Leaders’ Role in Creating an Environment for Great Products:
Leaders, even if they are not engineers or product managers, can significantly impact creating an environment where exceptional products are developed.

Examples of Non-Engineer Leaders:
Brad Smith cites notable leaders like Steve Jobs, Jack Dorsey, Scott Cook, and Bill Campbell himself, who have driven product excellence despite not being engineers.

Non-Engineer Leaders’ Contributions:
These leaders typically excel in areas such as marketing, product management, organizing talent, and design.

Actions to Foster Great Products:
Brad Smith inquires about specific actions non-engineer leaders can take to create an environment conducive to great product development.

Bill Campbell’s Response:
Bill Campbell suggests focusing on three key areas: Improving Current Products: Enhancing existing products by optimizing code, improving functionality, and enhancing user-friendliness. Rethinking Products: Reevaluating existing products from a fresh perspective to identify opportunities for significant improvements or innovative changes. Developing New Products: Creating entirely new products that address unmet needs or offer unique value propositions.

Innovation at Intuit:
Intuit’s approach to innovation involved solving existing problems in new and innovative ways, starting from scratch, and fostering creativity through initiatives like 10% time. Avoiding the trivialization of any one approach is crucial, as seen in Google’s early days when incomplete products were released to allow for further improvement and refinement.

Gmail’s Journey:
Gmail’s beta phase lasted a significant amount of time due to key personnel departures. Sundar Pichai’s return and subsequent refinement of the product transformed Gmail into a widely-used and highly regarded service. Fixing existing issues and improving the product’s features contributed to Gmail’s success.

Intuit’s Engineering Values:
Intuit emphasizes the importance of applying the best engineering talent to all aspects of product development. Maintaining high-quality engineering standards is essential for continuous product evolution.

Product Evolution:
Intuit focuses on evolving existing products in category one, improving metaphors and introducing innovations. Category two involves rethinking approaches to products like the tax product, incorporating features like help and online capabilities. Category three includes breakthrough innovations like the new phone’s picture-taking feature.

Respect for Engineering, Customers, and Competition:
Intuit values engineering expertise and respects customers’ needs. Product managers are expected to understand market competition and direct engineering efforts toward solving relevant problems.

Horizon Planning and Management:
Intuit employs horizon planning and management, which involves reimagining existing products and exploring adjacent opportunities. The company’s trajectory from DOS to Windows, web, and mobile exemplifies this approach.

Unstructured Time and Innovation:
Intuit allocates unstructured time for employees to explore new ideas and create products that didn’t previously exist.

Tip 1: Great Product Leaders Spend Time Using Their Own Products and Competitors’ Products:
Great product leaders consistently spend a significant portion of their time using their own products and those of their competitors. This hands-on approach helps them better understand the customer experience and identify areas for improvement.

Tip 2: Remove Barriers for Product Development Teams:
Successful product leaders prioritize removing obstacles that hinder product development teams. By streamlining processes and providing necessary resources, they create an environment that fosters innovation and rapid product iteration.

Tip 3: Prioritize Customer Needs and Feedback:
Great product leaders recognize the importance of customer satisfaction and actively seek feedback to improve their products. They understand that customer needs should drive product development decisions.

Tip 4: Great Leaders Pay Attention to Product Details:
Effective leaders prioritize product details and are actively involved in product reviews and discussions. They provide valuable insights and push for improvements to ensure the product meets the highest standards of quality.

Tip 5: The Importance of Passion and Dedication:
Passionate product leaders deeply care about the products they are developing. This passion drives them to push boundaries and create breakthrough products that transform industries.

Tip 6: Steve Jobs’ Example:
Steve Jobs is highlighted as an example of a leader who maintained a keen focus on product details while also managing the financial and operational aspects of his company.

Tip 7: Brad Smith’s Experience with Intuit’s QuickBooks:
Brad Smith shares an anecdote about his experience working on Intuit’s QuickBooks product. He emphasizes the importance of having a leader who understands the product and can drive the team to deliver a high-quality product within a tight deadline.

Tip 8: The Value of Passionate and Dedicated Individuals:
Passionate and dedicated individuals are essential for driving product innovation and success. When leaders find such individuals, they should empower them to take ownership and lead product development efforts.

Open Platforms and Market Success:
Open platforms are essential for ubiquitous adoption and scale. Controversies arise when open platforms allow competitors to challenge the platform creator. Android’s open platform enabled customization and differentiation but led to fragmentation and inconsistency. Apple’s closed platform ensured consistency and quality but faced criticism for its restrictiveness.

The Walled Garden Approach:
Apple’s walled garden approach involves strict control over the customer experience, including app approval and ecosystem management. This approach has evolved over time, with Apple relaxing some restrictions to allow for innovation and differentiation.

Balance between Control and Openness:
Striking the right balance between control and openness is crucial for delivering awesome products. Apple’s success stems from its ability to open up through APIs while maintaining control over the operating system and customer experience. Companies must carefully consider the implications of open platforms, including potential risks and benefits.

The Role of Visionaries and Lean Experimentation in Product Design:
The tension between visionary leadership and lean experimentation in product design was discussed. While lean experiments are valuable, visionary leaders can drive innovation and create products that delight customers. The ideal approach involves combining the strengths of both methods.

Steve Jobs’ Product Development Philosophy:
Steve Jobs relied on the expertise of his team and their taste to inform product decisions. Market research was often disregarded in favor of internal insights. This approach led to both successes and flaws, highlighting the importance of balancing visionary leadership with market feedback.

Lean Takes Advantage of Today’s Rapid Feedback Loops:
Traditional product development had long upgrade cycles and involved extensive reprogramming, QA testing, and product version updates. Lean methodology capitalizes on modern capabilities for rapid change based on customer feedback.

Lean’s Focus on Continuous Feedback and Correction:
At Google, engineers were kept on projects until the product reached a certain level of maturity. This ensured that engineers were familiar with the code, could make corrections, and were attentive to customer feedback.

Lean and Traditional Approaches Share a Commonality:
Both lean and traditional product development aim to limit downside risks during product transitions.

Ron Johnson’s Mistakes as CEO of JCPenney:
Johnson failed to maintain his current business while experimenting with new concepts. He neglected his existing business, leading to a 25% decline in sales.

Fact-Based vs. Opinion-Based Decisions:
Tony Fadal’s approach involves distinguishing between fact-based and opinion-based decisions. For fact-based decisions, rapid experiments can provide quick insights. For opinion-based decisions, courage and conviction are necessary to make a call.

Balancing Courage and Pullback:
In cases where decisions prove to be wrong, courage is required to pull back and admit mistakes. This balancing act ensures that lean experimentation doesn’t become overly dogmatic.

Steve Jobs’ Absence and Continued Development:
During Steve Jobs’ liver transplant, the development of the iPad continued smoothly.

Product Management at Apple:
Steve Jobs envisioned the iPad as a pure computing device for content creation and a consumption device for content consumption. Practical considerations by Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall led to the inclusion of essential features such as Excel compatibility and a publishing platform to compete with Amazon’s tablet. The success of the iPad highlights the role of product management in balancing breakthrough innovation with practical functionality.

Surprising Products:
Nest Thermostat: Despite its seemingly mundane purpose, the Nest thermostat has been a surprise success due to its brilliant engineering, leadership, and potential for future innovative products. RockMelt Social Browser: RockMelt had an exceptional user interface that aggregated feeds from various social media platforms. Despite its appealing design and practical functionality, it failed to gain traction in the market.

Lessons from Surprises:
The success of Nest demonstrates the potential for innovation in unexpected categories. The failure of RockMelt highlights the importance of market acceptance and momentum, even for well-designed products.

Effective Time Management:
Prioritizing time is crucial for product managers to accomplish the most important tasks.

Collaboration with Engineers:
The product manager should spend most of their time working closely with engineers. This collaboration allows for thorough consideration of product features and trade-offs. The product manager ensures that the best thinking goes into the product, considering competitor offerings.

Language Options and Localization:
Google faced the challenge of offering 40 languages at launch. Ellen Eustis, Senior Vice President of Engineering, had to ensure that each country’s language option was appropriate. Localization efforts were necessary to mitigate the impact of point solutions and improve the product’s relevance for each country.

Team Collaboration:
Effective collaboration among product management, engineering, and other functional teams is essential for success. Collaboration involves working together, not simply passing tasks back and forth.

Trusting Functional Organizations:
Product managers need to trust functional organizations, such as manufacturing, sales, and marketing, to handle their respective tasks. This allows the product manager to focus on their primary responsibilities.

The Role of Design in Engineering and Product Development:
Bill Campbell emphasizes the importance of design in today’s world, where it is a design-driven environment. He mentions the involvement of engineers, product managers, and user designers in the design process.

The Need for Engineers to Understand Usability:
Campbell stresses that engineers should understand usability to be effective product leaders. He believes that engineers should be able to get a product to 90% completion, with the remaining 10% focused on course correction and fine-tuning.

The Importance of Engineers Mastering Design Principles:
Campbell argues that engineers cannot simply focus on hard coding and leave design aspects to others. He emphasizes the need for engineers to be proficient in design principles and understand user interactions.

The Role of Design Principles in Unifying Products:
Brad Smith discusses the importance of having clear design principles to guide product development. He highlights the challenge of creating cohesive products when lacking guiding principles, leading to products that lack a unified identity.

The Need for Unification and Guiding Principles:
Campbell emphasizes the need for unifying principles that inspire engineers to deliver products that align with the overall ecosystem. He suggests that design principles play a crucial role in achieving this unification.

Design Principles for Seamless Product Interaction:
Bill Campbell emphasizes the significance of design extending beyond user interface (UI) to encompass the entire product experience. Design should facilitate smooth interaction, minimizing the number of steps required for customers to navigate the product. Campbell cites Amazon’s one-step ordering feature as a breakthrough in design and functionality, noting its impact on user interaction.

The Role of Engineers in Design:
Campbell stresses the need for engineers who champion design principles, ensuring a unified and intuitive user experience. Engineers should possess the vision to conceptualize groundbreaking design solutions and contribute to the development of cohesive design principles.

Maintaining Consistency in Design Evolution:
Campbell highlights Apple’s ability to consistently evolve its design principles across various products, including iOS and Macintosh desktop. He emphasizes the importance of adhering to design principles rather than making drastic changes that compromise user familiarity.

Innovative Thinking in Product Development:
Brad Smith shares examples of how Intuit’s products, such as SnapTax and Nyla, have evolved to meet customer needs. SnapTax revolutionized tax filing by eliminating interviews and utilizing images and targeted questions. Nyla, the QuickBooks app for tablets, brought new features and convenience to QuickBooks Online.

Aligning Executive Cunning with Customer Interests:
Campbell addresses the challenge of balancing political savvy among executives with customer-centric decision-making. He emphasizes the CEO’s role in breaking ties and resolving conflicts that arise from political maneuvering. Campbell stresses the importance of open communication and collaboration among executives to avoid internal strife and paralysis.

Consequences of Executive Turf Wars:
Campbell warns against allowing political battles to escalate within an organization, as they can lead to internal conflict and paralysis. He cites his experience at Apple under John Sculley’s leadership as an example of how turf-grabbing and power-building can negatively impact a company. Campbell advocates for decisive leadership, including the willingness to fire uncooperative individuals if necessary.

Bill Campbell’s Advice on Leadership:
Effective leaders ensure their staff is working collaboratively and address conflicts promptly to prevent harm to the company. Indecisiveness and failure to break ties can cripple an organization.

Bill Campbell’s Appreciation for Intuit:
Intuit’s focus on people and products aligns with Campbell’s values. Scott Cook’s visionary leadership, commitment to values, and transparent management style make Intuit a compelling company to be involved with.

Campbell’s Initial Intention to Build a Legacy:
Campbell aspired to create a lasting impact through Claris but faced disappointment when Apple acquired the company.

Choosing Intuit Over Other Opportunities:
Campbell considered venture capital and running another company but was drawn to Intuit because of Scott Cook’s leadership and the company’s values.

Campbell’s Appreciation for Intuit’s Culture:
Campbell values the open forums, clear direction, and transparency at Intuit. He sees Scott Cook as a guiding force with a deep understanding of the company’s heart and soul.

Campbell’s Decision to Stay Dedicated to Intuit:
Campbell enjoys helping companies and feels fulfilled by his role at Intuit. He values his independence and devotion to Intuit, and appreciates the company’s appreciation for him.

Brad Smith’s Gratitude for Campbell’s Contributions:
Smith acknowledges Campbell’s daily positive impact on Intuit and expresses gratitude for his leadership, inspiration, and friendship. Smith also thanks Campbell for breaking his usual principle and speaking on a live broadcast.