I don't think Apple's success can be isolated cleanly to one pivotal variable. Steve Jobs was obsessed with product and obsessed with product marketing. Apple d

I don't think Apple's success can be isolated cleanly to one pivotal variable. Steve Jobs was obsessed with product and obsessed with product marketing. Apple doesn't see product and product marketing as two wholly distinct functions, either. Most companies do -- and the fact that Apple doesn't is, in itself, a corporate strength. People could probably quibble for days about whether Apple is a "marketing first" company, or what that phrase actually means. I think it's more apropos to say that Apple is a company that understands both product and marketing. And it understands the "full stack" of marketing in a way most tech companies do not. Apple is phenomenal at brand marketing, for instance -- not just MarCom, or advertising, or conversion optimization. A lot of its competitors relegate marketing to a series of discrete, necessary-but-evil functions, and not a pillar of corporate culture.