One of the most painful types of people to work with is the CEO / founder who got lucky with a product early and came to believe they're a "product guy".
As in: My early product hit whatever trend / wave / need therefore I must be a product guy (and not just lucky).
The product guy has a preternatural ability to understand what the masses want. Watching them work -- witnessing their process -- is something to behold. They will steer products in a direction regardless of cost, complexity of likely outcome.
The outcome, quite often, is to tank their company. Since they don't understand why they were successful in the first place, it's very likely that their success won't last.
But if you're along for the ride, wow, expect the following:
1. You're the greatest (available) engineer we've ever encountered, building super-complicated XYZ is going to take this company to the next level!
2. This is taking much longer than expected and isn't matching up with our expectations but I'm 100% sure of my vision because I'm a product guy.
3. We're running out of money (because the market conditions that gave us early success have changed) and super-complicated XYZ isn't going to rescue us -- because you're a worthless piece of shit of an engineer!
See what happened there?
They're sometimes hard to distinguish from a vanilla bullshit artist. The bullshit artist will tell you how well capitalized he is, tell you he only wants the best (meaning he thinks you're expensive) and then try to slowly whittle your sense of self worth down until you get "the offer":
The offer is game-changing, life-altering for you: Instead of continuing to pay you with money, they're going to start paying you with magic pixie dust. The magic pixie dust will make you rich "when everything comes together."
When you tell bullshit artist that you don't work for magic pixie dust, that's when you learn that, in fact, you're a worthless piece of shit of an engineer.
I actually respect the bullshit artist more: They're bullshitting other people but they know they're full of shit. Product guys, depressingly, bullshit themselves.
As in: My early product hit whatever trend / wave / need therefore I must be a product guy (and not just lucky).
The product guy has a preternatural ability to understand what the masses want. Watching them work -- witnessing their process -- is something to behold. They will steer products in a direction regardless of cost, complexity of likely outcome.
The outcome, quite often, is to tank their company. Since they don't understand why they were successful in the first place, it's very likely that their success won't last.
But if you're along for the ride, wow, expect the following:
1. You're the greatest (available) engineer we've ever encountered, building super-complicated XYZ is going to take this company to the next level!
2. This is taking much longer than expected and isn't matching up with our expectations but I'm 100% sure of my vision because I'm a product guy.
3. We're running out of money (because the market conditions that gave us early success have changed) and super-complicated XYZ isn't going to rescue us -- because you're a worthless piece of shit of an engineer!
See what happened there?
They're sometimes hard to distinguish from a vanilla bullshit artist. The bullshit artist will tell you how well capitalized he is, tell you he only wants the best (meaning he thinks you're expensive) and then try to slowly whittle your sense of self worth down until you get "the offer":
The offer is game-changing, life-altering for you: Instead of continuing to pay you with money, they're going to start paying you with magic pixie dust. The magic pixie dust will make you rich "when everything comes together."
When you tell bullshit artist that you don't work for magic pixie dust, that's when you learn that, in fact, you're a worthless piece of shit of an engineer.
I actually respect the bullshit artist more: They're bullshitting other people but they know they're full of shit. Product guys, depressingly, bullshit themselves.