The founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, writes about a related topic on the supply side in his book, "Let My People Go Surfing." The way he phrases it is, "Wh

The founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, writes about a related topic on the supply side in his book, "Let My People Go Surfing." The way he phrases it is, "What is the company's real product?" and he defines product as that which the company makes its decisions around. Some of it is a little simplistic, but the points that have stayed with me are 1) the product of a large publicly traded company is its stock price, and 2) the product of a small scrappy start up is the start up itself.