> As much as business and engineering types fetishize data-driven decisions My counter argument to data driven decisions is Microsoft in 2007. Microsoft had a

> As much as business and engineering types fetishize data-driven decisions My counter argument to data driven decisions is Microsoft in 2007. Microsoft had a large number of user studies, done by Very Professional Firms, that American customers would never pay for phones, everyone in America was too addicted to free phones through 2 year plan lock-ins. Making consumer smart phones was a silly idea! So anyway iPhone comes out, and internal memos are sent out reminding us all that we have Really Good Data showing how foolish the iPhone is. Turns out data does an excellent job of repressing innovation. If the data says "don't bother making an amazing product people want to buy", your data might suck. I mean, you may be making the wrong product sure, wrong price point, too small an audience, but if the data just flat out says "don't do cool shit", throw the data away.