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Tobi Lutke: It's Impossible to Make Great Products If You Don't Give a Damn

By Tobi Lutke · Leadership · 1 min read

Every product in the world — the quality at the end of the day is simply a reflection of how much the people who created it gave a damn. It is not possible to make great products if the people who work on it do not care about the product.

Key Points

Product quality is simply a reflection of how much the creators cared
Do not engage in product work on product you don't care about — you cannot produce what's needed
Being exothermically infectious with caring alone makes a 10x better product

It is not possible to make great products if people who work on it do not give a damn about the product.

Quality Is How Much You Cared

Lutke: Every product in the world — the quality at the end of the day is simply a reflection of how much the people who created it gave a damn about the product. It is not possible to make great products if people who work on it do not give a damn about the product.

I think this is a very important role for product leaders — to make sure that the team gives a damn. It can be done by building empathy for the people using it. But it can also be done infectiously by the product leader. The product leader has to give a damn.

Quality is a reflection of how much the people who created it cared. The product leader has to give a damn.

Don't Work on Product You Don't Care About

Lutke: Do not engage in product work on product that you don't care about. Because you cannot produce the thing that the person who gave you the task is looking for. It isn't about the brief document. It isn't about aligning stakeholders. Those are sometimes aspects of it.

Do not engage in product work on product you don't care about. You cannot produce what's needed.

Exothermically Infectious

Lutke: If you work on product, you have basically two roles. You have to understand the thing that's being done better than everyone else. And you've got to be exothermically infectious with actually caring about this thing.

Just that one thing alone will make a 10 times better product. It's crazy how much of a change this makes.

Be exothermically infectious with caring. Just that alone makes a 10x better product.