Real talk: Most tech company employees aren't building for users—they're building for their performance reviews.
Two types dominate:
1. The Copy-Paste Crew → See competitor feature → Clone it → Call it "innovation"
2. The Complexity Merchants → Over-engineer everything → Make it unusable → Justify their headcount
Both driven by the same thing: job security theater.
The incentive structure is broken. Shipping simple, useful features doesn't get you promoted. Building a 47-step onboarding flow with 12 modals does.
This is why most products feel bloated and confusing. Not because teams are incompetent—because they're optimizing for internal metrics, not actual user value.
Want better products? Align incentives with user outcomes, not feature counts.
Two types dominate:
1. The Copy-Paste Crew → See competitor feature → Clone it → Call it "innovation"
2. The Complexity Merchants → Over-engineer everything → Make it unusable → Justify their headcount
Both driven by the same thing: job security theater.
The incentive structure is broken. Shipping simple, useful features doesn't get you promoted. Building a 47-step onboarding flow with 12 modals does.
This is why most products feel bloated and confusing. Not because teams are incompetent—because they're optimizing for internal metrics, not actual user value.
Want better products? Align incentives with user outcomes, not feature counts.