Every judged decision, in one place
Decision Atlas
229 decisions from 3 parts of the site, from the essays, the annotated memos and the technologies that lost. Filter by era, verdict, pattern or source, and look for what repeats.
Verdicts by decade
229 decisions shown. The chart follows your filters.
- Paid off
- Mixed
- Too early
- Backfired
Process against outcome
146 decisions carry both grades. The interesting cells are off the diagonal: strong processes that backfired, which are bad luck to learn from, and weak processes that paid off, which are good luck to be wary of.
| Process grade | Paid off | Mixed | Too early | Backfired |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strong process | 44 | 1 | · | · |
| Sound process | 21 | 23 | 12 | 7 |
| Weak process | · | 6 | · | 24 |
| Poor process | · | · | · | 8 |
Decisions
- Store the program in memory alongside the data Turning a fixed capability into data makes it general, at a cost in efficiency that time usually repays. Paid off
- Put capacity and intelligence in the network: small cells, reused frequencies, simple handsets If the scarce resource cannot be increased, redesign the system to reuse it. Paid off
- Link notes to each other instead of filing them under headings Design for connection, not just storage; the value of a collection is in what it returns that you did not expect. Paid off
- Treat the compiler’s efficiency, not the language design, as the real challenge Find the single objection that stops adoption and make it disappear; elegance can wait. Paid off
- Launch a general-purpose credit card by mailing 60,000 unsolicited cards to residents of Fresno at once A network that needs two sides at once may justify a bold launch, but the risks of the launch fall on people who did not choose them. Mixed Weak process
- Design hypertext as a single coordinated docuverse with two-way links, transclusion and versioning, rather than as links between independent documents. A complete design that cannot ship in pieces is a bet that the world will wait for it. Too early Sound process
- Demonstrate time-sharing with a modest system that ran alongside batch work Make the first version compatible with how people already work, and small enough to finish. Paid off
- Make an entire range of computers run the same software (System/360) A compatibility promise can be worth more than any single product; once made, it shapes everything after it. Paid off
- Use the machine’s instruction set as the interface, giving every user a complete virtual copy of the computer The best interface is often one that already exists; virtualise it instead of inventing a new one. Paid off
- Store relationships as chains of pointers that programs navigate Coupling users to your internal structure buys performance now and costs flexibility later. Mixed
- Add the null reference because it was easy to implement Language and platform shortcuts are permanent. Choose what is safe forever over what is easy now. Backfired
- Leave the ambitious Multics project and build a small system, Unix Scope down until it is cheap enough to finish, then let a community extend it. Paid off
- Price software, training and services separately from computer hardware Putting a separate price on something reveals what it is worth, and invites others to compete in supplying it. Paid off Sound process
- Turn Bank of America’s licensing programme into an independent organisation owned by its member banks, with shared rules and no single owner A network rivals will join must be one that no rival controls. Paid off Strong process
- Fund card systems through interchange fees paid by merchants’ banks to cardholders’ banks, with rules that kept merchants from charging card users more When a cost is hidden from the person whose choice creates it, expect overuse and, eventually, regulation. Mixed Sound process
- Protect users from knowing how data is stored (the relational model) A stable interface that says nothing about implementation can absorb fifty years of change. Paid off
- Trust the programmer with memory and leave out automatic checks Trusting the expert scales with the number of experts, not the size of the code. Mixed
- Build a programmable processor instead of custom calculator logic When the platform improves automatically, general solutions beat custom ones. Paid off
- Build standard business software that many companies could use with configuration, processing data in real time, rather than writing custom programs for each client Packaging what many customers need in common can be worth more than tailoring what each one wants. Paid off Strong process
- Combine the Air Force and Navy concepts into one system with atomic clocks on the satellites and receivers that only listen, so that any number of users could share it A system that costs nothing extra for each new user is ready for uses its designers never imagined. Paid off Strong process
- Build a phone for a person rather than a car Ask who the product is really for: the place, the device or the person. Paid off
- Design an English-like query language for non-programmers Your product may succeed with a different audience than you planned. Watch who actually uses it. Mixed
- Launch Betamax on Sony's own design and seek partners to adopt it, rather than co-developing a shared standard with rivals before launch. In a market with network effects, the size of the coalition matters more than the quality of the founder's design. Backfired Weak process
- Launch with a one-hour recording time, favouring a smaller cassette and picture quality. Ask what customers will do with the product once they have it, not only what they do today. Backfired Sound process
- Launch VHS with longer recording time and license it widely to other manufacturers. A challenger can beat a first mover by making it easier for others to win alongside it. Paid off Strong process
- Build a national videotex network and give households terminals free of charge, initially to replace the paper telephone directory. Removing the cost of joining can launch a network that charging for entry would kill. Paid off Strong process
- Not to seek a patent on the electronic spreadsheet When you create a new category, assume it will be copied, and plan your advantage around speed and distribution, not legal protection. Mixed Sound process
- Launch first on the Apple II, a hobbyist machine, at about $100 A product that lets individuals solve their own problem can enter an organisation without asking permission. Paid off Strong process
- Let the database choose how to run each query using statistics about the data An abstraction is only as good as the machinery that makes it fast. Paid off
- Commercialise the MIT Lisp machine as dedicated hardware rather than as software for general-purpose computers. A hardware advantage built on today's gap is a bet that the gap will last. Mixed Sound process
- Continue investing primarily in proprietary Lisp hardware as general-purpose workstations improved rapidly. When a cheaper general platform is catching up, move your value into what runs on it before it arrives. Backfired Weak process
- Let any program touch any part of the machine (no memory protection) Defaults that are safe in isolation become dangerous when the product is connected. Revisit them when the environment changes. Backfired
- Accept mail from any server and believe whatever it says about the sender When you choose permissive defaults to grow, design the mechanism for tightening them before you need it. Mixed
- Announce that GPS would be made available for civil aviation once it was operational, after Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down Opening infrastructure to everyone can create more value than any owner could capture by keeping it. Paid off Sound process
- Build a complete free operating system, and protect it with a licence (copyleft) that requires anyone distributing modified versions to share their changes on the same terms The rules of a commons determine whether it survives contact with commercial interests. Paid off Strong process
- Build only for the IBM PC, in assembly language for speed, and integrate spreadsheet, charts and database Win the platform that is about to become the standard, and optimise ruthlessly for it. Paid off Strong process
- Bet on a graphical, what-you-see-is-what-you-get word processor for Windows Win the platform shift, and your format becomes the standard. Paid off
- Standardise Common Lisp so that Lisp programs could run on many machines, including general-purpose ones. Standards that help your users can also dissolve your hardware advantage; plan for that. Mixed Sound process
- Introduce the kiosque billing system, charging users per minute on their phone bill and sharing revenue with service providers. A simple, trusted payment system can create an ecosystem of providers almost overnight. Paid off Strong process
- Found a semiconductor company that would only manufacture chips designed by other companies, with Philips as the main foreign partner When you cannot win the existing game, look for the part of it that others would gladly hand to someone they trust. Paid off Strong process
- Launch Excel on the Macintosh first, designed around the mouse and a graphical interface, before bringing it to Windows If you cannot beat the leader on today’s platform, be the best product on the next one. Paid off Strong process
- Jointly develop OS/2 as the successor to DOS, initially targeting the Intel 80286 processor. A new platform must make the old software run well before it can make new software worth writing. Backfired Weak process
- Never design or sell chips under its own name, so that it would never compete with its customers A credible promise to stay out of your customer’s business can be worth more than the business you give up. Paid off Strong process
- Rebuild its system for client-server computers rather than staying on mainframes Moving to the next platform before you have to is cheaper than following after you have lost. Paid off Strong process
- Concentrate on a version of 1-2-3 for OS/2 rather than Windows When your business depends on a platform you do not own, keep a real option on the alternatives. Backfired Sound process
- Sue makers of compatible spreadsheets for copying 1-2-3’s menus and “look and feel” The habits your users have learned are a moat only while they choose to stay; suing to keep them rarely beats giving them a reason to. Backfired Weak process
- Develop a global satellite telephone network for business travellers and others outside terrestrial coverage, and spin it into a separate company with outside investors. A long build into a fast-moving market needs a thesis that survives the market's likely evolution, not only today's gaps. Backfired Weak process
- Invest in the Xanadu project to turn it into a commercial product. Fund ambitious visions in stages, each of which must produce something people can use. Backfired Weak process
- Build hypertext with one-way links between documents on independent servers, with no central control, and accept that links may break. In a network, the system that is easiest to join often beats the system that is hardest to break. Paid off Strong process
- Deliberately degrade the accuracy of the public GPS signal through Selective Availability Degrading a shared good to deny it to a few tends to tax everyone and stop no one. Mixed Sound process
- Continue to rely on and protect Minitel as the national online system while the internet spread elsewhere. Plan the exit from a successful platform while it is still successful. Backfired Weak process
- After the success of Windows 3.0, shift strategic priority to Windows and away from joint OS/2 development. When customers adopt the option you control, partnership commitments can become a cost rather than an asset. Paid off Strong process
- Build a complete platform for communicating devices, Magic Cap and Telescript, licensed to manufacturers and carriers through a large alliance. A platform that depends on infrastructure others must build is a bet on their schedule as well as yours. Too early Sound process
- Build the kernel in the open and release it under a licence that keeps it free An open foundation that no competitor can own can become the default for everyone, including competitors. Paid off
- Release the Linux kernel under the GPL and accept contributions from anyone over the internet A small working thing, released early and maintained responsively, can attract the effort no single organisation could fund. Paid off Strong process
- Release a spreadsheet that separated formulas from data and organised numbers by named categories, first on NeXT A superior design on an obscure platform becomes someone else’s feature. Too early Sound process
- Put the subscriber’s identity on a removable SIM card, and use spare signalling capacity for text messages Watch what users do with your by-products; they may be the product. Paid off
- Filter information using the reactions of other people, rather than only the content of the documents The judgements of similar people can be a better signal than the thing itself. Paid off Sound process
- Position OS/2 2.0 and Warp as "a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows", emphasising their ability to run DOS and Windows programs. Compatibility with a rival's platform buys users at the price of strengthening that platform. Backfired Sound process
- Launch the Newton MessagePad as a new category of pen-based personal digital assistant with natural handwriting recognition. When the core interaction does not work reliably, ambition elsewhere cannot rescue the product. Backfired Weak process
- Install SAP R/3 and a new automated warehouse system at the same time, and bid for contracts on the basis of savings the systems were expected to deliver Do not bet the company on a system’s promised benefits before it has delivered them. Backfired Poor process
- Mix code into HTML pages and make deployment as simple as copying a file The easiest product to start with often wins, even if it is not the cleanest. Paid off
- Jointly develop a new 64-bit architecture based on explicitly parallel instruction computing, rather than extending x86. A clean break must offer gains large enough to pay for every customer's switching costs. Backfired Sound process
- Ship a scripting language in ten days that had to “look like Java” Whatever ships where everyone already is will set the standard; design it as if it will last. Mixed
- Reorient the whole of Microsoft around the internet, and treat a browser company as the main threat to Windows. A strategy memo is most useful when it names the specific threat to your core business, as this one did with Netscape and the idea of the browser as a platform. Mixed
- Let buyers and sellers rate each other publicly after every transaction, instead of policing disputes itself When you cannot inspect every transaction, give participants a memory of each other. Paid off Strong process
- Show everyone whether you are online (presence) Every signal you expose about a user creates an expectation others will act on. Mixed
- Make email free, run it in the browser, and put an invitation at the foot of every message Build the invitation into the core action, so that using the product spreads it. Paid off
- Add an animated Office Assistant that offered help when it guessed what you were doing Proactive features must be right far more often than passive ones to be welcome. Backfired
- Sell the order of search results by open auction, with advertisers paying only when a user clicks Inventing the business model is not the same as owning the place where it is used. Mixed Strong process
- Rank pages by the links pointing to them, and offer a plain search page rather than a portal Look for signals your users already produce honestly, and protect the core task from the clutter that business pressure adds around it. Paid off Strong process
- Host conventional client-server business software in their own data centres, one installation per customer, funded largely by debt Moving an old product to a new channel rarely captures the economics of the new channel. Backfired Weak process
- Recommend products by relating items to items, computed in advance from purchase histories, rather than matching each customer to similar customers at the moment of the visit The simplest algorithm that scales often beats the best one that does not. Paid off Strong process
- Release the source code of its web browser, Communicator, under an open licence Opening a product can preserve its future even when it cannot save its owner. Mixed Sound process
- Promote “open source” as a practical development method, dropping the moral language of “free software,” to win over business How you name something decides who will listen, and what they will hear. Paid off Sound process
- Virtualize x86 anyway, with binary translation, running on top of an existing operating system Solving a problem everyone thinks requires new hardware can build a company; plan for the day the hardware arrives. Paid off
- Tell investors in advance that Amazon would sacrifice short-term profit for long-term market leadership, and how it would make that trade. Write down your trade-offs before you need to defend them; it changes how later decisions are judged. Paid off
- Discontinue the Newton platform. Ending a product can preserve the capability to return to its vision when the time is right. Paid off Sound process
- Launch commercial service with large handsets priced around $3,000 and calls costing several dollars a minute. When the product cannot be changed, the market you choose to serve first decides whether it lives. Backfired Weak process
- Run a central index of the songs stored on users' computers, with the files themselves passing directly between users An architecture is also a legal position. Where the system keeps knowledge and control, the law will look for responsibility. Backfired Weak process
- Deliver business software through the browser from a single shared (multi-tenant) system, priced per user per month, with no installation A new delivery model can be a bigger advantage than better features, if it changes who can buy and how quickly. Paid off Strong process
- Switch on new ERP, customer relationship and supply chain systems together in July, shortly before the Halloween ordering season Schedule irreversible changes for when you can afford them to go wrong. Backfired Poor process
- Treat data from its Horizon accounting system as reliable evidence against sub-postmasters, prosecuting and pursuing them for shortfalls, despite reports of errors When a system and a person disagree, the system’s output is a claim to be checked, not a verdict. Backfired Poor process
- Give away the software and sell subscriptions for certified, supported, long-maintained versions of Linux for enterprises When the product is free, sell the certainty around it. Paid off Strong process
- Extend x86 to 64 bits with full backward compatibility, announced in 1999 and shipped as Opteron in 2003. When the leader leaves its customers' existing investment behind, the follower can win by protecting it. Paid off Strong process
- Pursue Napster in court until it closed, rather than license it as a paid service, even after Bertelsmann broke ranks to back a membership version When customers have shown what they want, suing the messenger protects rights but rarely the business. Backfired Weak process
- Decline IBM’s offer to share its 0.13-micron copper process and develop its own In a business that runs on learning, renting the knowledge can leave you permanently a step behind the owner. Paid off Sound process
- End Selective Availability and commit to a civilian GPS signal at full accuracy, free of charge When a restriction has stopped working, removing it can be the most valuable thing an owner does. Paid off Strong process
- Build its own fraud detection software and concentrate on payments between buyers and sellers on eBay In payments, the capacity to manage fraud is the product. Paid off Strong process
- Use Google’s results to power Yahoo!’s web search, with Google credited on the page Be careful about outsourcing the function your users come for, especially to a supplier whose brand appears on your page. Backfired Sound process
- Open Amazon’s product pages to independent sellers, letting them compete directly with Amazon’s own retail offers Letting rivals sell to your customers can grow the whole market you control. Paid off Strong process
- Buy the satellite network out of bankruptcy at a tiny fraction of its cost and serve niche markets. The same asset can be a disaster at one cost basis and a success at another. Paid off Strong process
- Pursue a web of machine-readable meaning built on formal standards, shared ontologies and logic, intended to be adopted broadly by publishers. A standard that asks many people to do work for a future benefit to someone else needs an immediate reward to spread. Mixed Sound process
- Sell text ads by cost-per-click auction, rank them by bid multiplied by expected click-through rate, charge just above the next bidder, and keep them labelled and separate from the organic results When you sell access to your users, make relevance to the user part of the price. Paid off Strong process
- Pay browser and device makers to make Google the default search engine, under revenue-sharing contracts that in many cases excluded rivals When you are dominant, paying to be the default is a different act from earning the choice, and courts will judge it as one. Mixed Weak process
- Fight spam with learning filters and sender reputation rather than a price on sending Every abuse defence is also a market structure. Ask who it advantages. Mixed
- Make security, availability and privacy Microsoft’s highest priority, and choose security over new features whenever they conflict. When a quality problem threatens trust in the whole product, a feature-by-feature fix is not enough; change the priority order explicitly. Paid off
- Sell songs one at a time for 99 cents, with the copy protection the labels required, through its own software and player Make the legal path easier than the illegal one, and the price question becomes secondary. Paid off Sound process
- Back 193-nanometre immersion lithography, which images chips through a thin layer of water, and cancel orders for tools using 157-nanometre light The incremental path that works often beats the official roadmap that needs everything to go right. Paid off Strong process
- Extend the ad auction to other people’s websites, sharing revenue with publishers When you pay the producers whose work you also rank, expect them to produce for your payments. Paid off Sound process
- Run its Chinese business, EachNet, on eBay’s global platform and fee model, against a local rival that charged sellers nothing A marketplace that works in one country may need different trust mechanisms, not just translation, in another. Backfired Weak process
- Charge sellers nothing to list, hold buyers’ payments in escrow until goods arrived, and let buyers chat with sellers Solve the trust problem your customers actually have, not the one your competitor solved elsewhere. Paid off Strong process
- Ask the guest operating system to cooperate with the hypervisor (paravirtualization) Telling users the truth about the system can let them make better decisions than a perfect illusion. Mixed
- Respond to the end of Dennard scaling with multiple cores When a free improvement ends, someone inherits its cost. Plan who that will be. Mixed
- Decline Google’s offer and keep growing while the site slowed and fake profiles were deleted Never let the experience decay during your fastest growth; and do not go to war with your earliest users’ culture. Backfired
- Consolidate the market for installed enterprise applications by acquiring PeopleSoft and Siebel Consolidating a market at its peak can fund the future, but it can also hand that future to the people you displaced. Mixed Sound process
- Replace hundreds of legacy logistics systems with a single commercial ERP-based system while also changing its logistics processes The larger the transformation, the more it must be broken into pieces that can succeed or fail on their own. Backfired Weak process
- Make the routine decisions once, for everyone (“convention over configuration”) Identify the decisions that do not deserve your users’ attention, and make them for them. Paid off
- Offer a gigabyte of storage, replace folders with search, and pay for it by scanning mail to choose ads Compete on the dimension where your costs are structurally lower than everyone else’s. Paid off
- Require real names and college email addresses, and open one campus at a time Launch where you can reach density quickly, and grow only as fast as the product can stay reliable. Paid off
- Go public on Google’s own terms: a dual-class share structure that kept control with the founders, no traditional earnings guidance, an auction-based offering and an explicit commitment to long-term, high-risk projects. Set expectations publicly before the pressure arrives; a letter written at the IPO governs how later decisions are judged. Paid off
- Adopt 64-bit x86 for mainstream products while continuing Itanium for high-end servers. Changing course quickly in the market and honouring commitments to existing customers can both be right at once. Mixed Sound process
- Let anyone upload video and remove infringing material only on notice, then build a system that matched uploads to owners' works and let owners block them or take a share of the advertising Permissive growth can be made durable if a way to share the gains with the people harmed arrives before the courts do. Paid off Sound process
- Launch a free web map that users could drag, zoom and search in the browser, funded by advertising, and let outside developers build on it Giving away a costly layer can win the market for everything built on top of it. Paid off Strong process
- Build human resources and finance software for large enterprises from scratch as a shared online service Credibility with conservative customers can be the scarcest resource in a platform shift. Paid off Strong process
- Store, pack and ship goods for independent sellers, and make those goods eligible for Prime delivery The infrastructure that makes strangers trustworthy can also make them dependent. Paid off Strong process
- Release anonymised viewing data and offer $1 million to anyone who could improve its rating predictions by 10 percent Optimise for the decision the business will face when the work is done, not the one it faces now. Mixed Sound process
- Offer a free spreadsheet in the browser, built for sharing and simultaneous editing Against a dominant product, compete on the dimension it was not built for. Paid off Sound process
- Move the document into the browser with simultaneous editing Sometimes the product is not a better tool but a different place where the work happens. Paid off
- Make the shared document the meeting place Moving communication into the shared object can reduce messages rather than speeding them up. Paid off
- Rent computing capacity by the hour If your internal capability is far better than what customers can build, consider selling it. Paid off
- Open graphics chips to general computation (CUDA), then design chips only for neural networks (TPU) Make your product programmable; your users may find a bigger market than you designed for. Paid off
- Turn profiles into News Feed, a continuous stream of friends’ activity When a feature exposes users more, ship the controls with it, not after the protest. Paid off
- Start with an expensive, low-volume sports car and use the money to fund progressively cheaper, higher-volume cars. When a technology is too expensive for the mass market, start where customers will pay a premium and use the margins to move down. Paid off
- Add streaming free to its DVD-by-mail subscriptions instead of selling it as a separate service The safest way to replace your own business is to let your customers try the replacement for free. Paid off Strong process
- Buy the digital map maker Navteq for about $8.1 billion Paying a premium for a scarce asset is dangerous when a richer rival can make it abundant. Backfired Sound process
- Launch mobile money for people without bank accounts, using a network of shopkeepers as agents to convert cash into electronic value Infrastructure for the excluded can be built from what they already use. Paid off Strong process
- Open the iPhone to outside developers only through an App Store in which Apple reviews every app, distributes it and takes 30 percent of paid sales Safety and simplicity can open a market, but whoever controls the gate will eventually be judged on how they use it. Paid off Strong process
- Open the social network to outside apps with broad access to users’ data and their friends’ data, then progressively restrict it Developers who build on your platform are betting on your future rules. Generosity you cannot sustain is a debt. Mixed Weak process
- Release the Android operating system as open source, while keeping its app store and key services proprietary and licensed to phone makers Giving away the layer you do not need to own can secure the layer you do. Paid off Strong process
- Remove the keyboard and buttons and make the whole front a touchscreen Replacing fixed hardware with software can make a device general; check which of your fixed features users would trade for flexibility. Paid off
- Allow only web apps at first, then reverse course and open a native App Store Being willing to reverse a public decision quickly can matter more than getting it right first. Paid off
- License the operating system to many manufacturers If your goal is reach, let others build on your platform at prices you could never hit yourself. Paid off
- Choose availability over consistency: an always-writeable store State your trade-off explicitly, and limit it to the problem it was made for. Paid off
- Call publicly on the major record labels to abolish copy protection (DRM) on music sold online, rather than opening Apple’s own DRM to competitors. When you are pressured to change something another party requires, it can be more effective to propose removing the requirement than to defend it. Paid off
- License the major labels' catalogues for a free, advertising-supported tier as well as a paid one, granting the labels equity and advance payments in return When a few suppliers control what you cannot do without, the terms of their consent become your business model. Paid off Sound process
- Build its own base map with Street View cars and human editors, and offer free voice-guided navigation on Android A product sold by others can become a free feature in the hands of a company that profits elsewhere. Paid off Strong process
- Show its own shopping comparison service prominently in results while rival comparison sites appeared as ordinary links lower down When your ranking is the market, your own products cannot compete in it on unequal terms. Backfired Weak process
- Allow Android users to install apps from sources other than Google’s own store Openness on paper is not openness in practice if the defaults and contracts point one way. Mixed Sound process
- Promise to “remember everything”: capture anything, find it anywhere Ask whether your core metric (items saved) measures the outcome users actually want. Mixed
- In the depth of the financial crisis, take back workers who had been laid off and raise capital spending sharply In a cyclical industry, the decisions that decide the next upturn are made in the downturn. Paid off Strong process
- Drop SQL, joins and schemas for scale and flexibility Before abandoning a standard, ask whether the standard can absorb the fix. Mixed
- Replace most rules and processes with high talent density, candour and context, and let people go who are merely adequate. Culture documents work when they describe decisions (who is hired, rewarded and let go), not when they list virtues. Mixed
- Launch Wave as a broad new category meant to unify email, chat and documents, with an invitation-only preview. A tool whose value depends on others must launch in a way that brings the others along. Backfired Weak process
- Collect precise location from phones through apps and advertising code, and sell or share it Data that shows where a person has been shows who they are, and should be collected as if that were the case. Backfired Poor process
- Sell online payments to software developers, through a simple programming interface that hid banks, card networks and compliance Abstracting a complex system into a simple interface can change who makes the buying decision. Paid off Strong process
- Let customers pay in cash when goods were delivered To win a sceptical customer, take on the risk they will not. Paid off Sound process
- Sell its own products in competition with marketplace sellers while holding their sales data and controlling which offer wins the Buy Box If you run the market, the rules you apply to yourself are the ones others will judge you by. Backfired Weak process
- Build sites as single-page JavaScript applications Measure the cost of your choices on your users’ worst devices, not your own. Mixed
- Give receivers control: threads, do-not-disturb, scheduled send, status messages Design for the receiver as carefully as for the sender. Mixed
- Keep Adobe Flash off the iPhone and iPad for good, and explain the decision publicly as a choice for open web standards, battery life, reliability and touch. When you say no to something customers ask for, explain the reasons in the customer’s terms (battery, crashes, touch), not only in strategic terms. Paid off
- Stop developing Wave as a standalone product about fifteen months after its unveiling, and carry its technology into other products. Killing a product fast can be right, but the way it is ended shapes how people trust the next one. Mixed Sound process
- Commission original series without pilots and release whole seasons at once When your suppliers become your rivals, owning what you sell is the defence, and it changes what you sell. Paid off Sound process
- Change the ranking to demote large volumes of thin, low-quality pages, even though many of them displayed Google ads A ranking that can be gamed must be defended continuously, and sometimes against your own revenue. Paid off Strong process
- Require apps selling digital goods and subscriptions to use Apple’s in-app purchase system, at its commission, and bar them from telling users about cheaper options elsewhere Rules that work only if customers do not know their options are vulnerable to anyone who tells them. Backfired Weak process
- Stop selling boxed Creative Suite licences and move all customers to monthly or annual Creative Cloud subscriptions A business-model transition needs new measures of progress, explained before the old measures fall. Paid off Strong process
- Sell Office as a subscription while continuing to offer perpetual versions When customers depend on you, letting them move at their own pace can be worth more than moving them at yours. Paid off Sound process
- Adopt a standard SAP retail system while keeping its own long-standing practice of valuing inventory at purchase prices, which required extensive customisation Decide early whether you will adapt to the software or the software to you; trying to do both is the most expensive choice. Backfired Weak process
- Apologise publicly and guarantee hosts up to $50,000 for damage caused by guests, after a host’s home was ransacked When your marketplace asks people to trust strangers, you will eventually have to insure that trust. Paid off Sound process
- Turn a quiz-show demonstration into a business unit aimed at cancer care and other high-stakes fields A general capability does not become a solution until it fits the data, workflow and accountability of a specific job. Backfired Weak process
- Build a social network on top of everyone’s Google account Do not confuse distribution with demand: count what people do, not how many accounts exist. Backfired
- Prepare Nokia’s employees to abandon its own smartphone platforms, an announcement that came days later as a partnership to build phones on Microsoft’s Windows Phone. A memo that tells everyone the current product is doomed will reach customers and retailers, not only employees; plan for that audience. Backfired
- Split Netflix in two: keep streaming under the Netflix name and move DVD-by-mail to a separate service called Qwikster, with separate websites and accounts. Do not make customers carry the cost of your internal reorganisation; two websites and two accounts were Netflix’s convenience, not theirs. Backfired
- Argue that Google should treat every product as a platform, as Amazon did after Jeff Bezos required every team to expose its work through service interfaces. Products that expose clean interfaces can become platforms; products that do not stay products. Paid off
- Launch schema.org, a shared, simple vocabulary for structured data, rewarded by richer appearance in search results. Adoption follows incentives more reliably than it follows elegance. Paid off Strong process
- Invest €838 million for a 5 percent stake in ASML and commit €276 million to its research on extreme ultraviolet lithography When everyone depends on one supplier’s breakthrough, the customers who fund it get it first. Paid off Sound process
- Replace Google's maps on the iPhone with its own, assembled from licensed data, in iOS 6 Some products can be shipped and fixed; a map has to be right on the first day someone relies on it. Mixed Weak process
- Rank and recommend videos by expected watch time rather than clicks or views Every improvement in a proxy metric creates a new way for the system to diverge from what people actually value. Mixed Sound process
- Run a new value-at-risk model for a large derivatives portfolio on manually maintained spreadsheets When a spreadsheet becomes a system, it must be governed like one. Backfired Poor process
- Add optional types on top of JavaScript instead of replacing it Improve the standard from inside rather than asking people to leave it. Paid off
- Buy Instagram and WhatsApp while they were young Buy the format your users are moving toward before it is obvious, and expect regulators to ask why later. Paid off
- Tell public investors that Facebook’s mission came before profit and that it would keep a culture of rapid, iterative building, which Zuckerberg called the Hacker Way. A culture optimised for speed needs explicit limits for decisions whose consequences cannot be undone. Mixed
- Buy young social apps, Instagram above all, before they could grow into threats to Facebook. Write down why you are making an acquisition before you make it; the reasons will be examined later, by your board and possibly by regulators. Paid off
- Aim its 10-nanometre process at an unusually large increase in density, 2.7 times its 14-nanometre process, without extreme ultraviolet lithography A leader’s confidence in its own track record is the hardest risk to see from inside. Backfired Weak process
- Default many customers to an “annual, paid monthly” plan that charged a large fee for cancelling in the first year If customers stay because leaving is hard, the retention number is measuring the trap. Backfired Weak process
- Package applications as portable images rather than inventing new isolation Often the winning product is the usable wrapper around capabilities that already exist. Paid off
- Describe the interface as a function of state and let the library work out the changes Declarative interfaces win when the system can handle the how reliably. Paid off
- Sell “a reduction in information overload” through open, searchable channels If your product makes sending cheaper, measure the cost to receivers, not only the reduction in email. Mixed
- Buy a hit email app built on top of Gmail, then close it If your product runs on someone else’s platform, ask what stops the platform copying you, before you raise money or sell. Backfired
- Run a creator-driven video app without giving creators a way to earn In a creator product, pay the people who make the content or expect them to leave. Backfired
- Rebuild the product four times around blocks that can become databases If users build their own tools with your product, you have a platform, not an app. Paid off
- Position a group chat tool as organisational transformation, and make the team’s job selling that change rather than features. Customers rarely shop for a new category; describe the change in their work, not the tool. Mixed
- Launch a separate experimental email app, then close it and move its best ideas into Gmail If something is an experiment, say so, and plan the exit before people depend on it. Mixed
- Redefine Microsoft as “the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world,” moving the company’s centre of gravity away from Windows and devices. Changing a company’s self-definition can matter more than any single product decision, because it changes which decisions feel natural. Paid off
- Replace its older ERP with S/4HANA and set a date for ending mainstream support of the old system, pushing customers to migrate, increasingly to SAP’s cloud When a vendor sets your deadline, plan as if it will not move, and negotiate as if it might. Too early Sound process
- Build an instant payment system owned by a not-for-profit company of banks, open to any bank and to third-party apps, using simple addresses instead of account numbers Build the rail as a commons and let competition happen on the trains. Paid off Strong process
- Withdraw ₹500 and ₹1,000 banknotes as legal tender with four hours’ notice Shock policies change behaviour, but the costs fall on those with the fewest alternatives. Mixed Weak process
- Build a video app around a feed chosen entirely by algorithm from all content, rather than from accounts the user follows A product that works for a new user on the first day can outgrow one that needs the user to build something first. Paid off Strong process
- Copy Snapchat’s Stories format openly Novelty is not a moat. If your advantage is a format, assume a larger competitor will ship it within a year. Paid off
- Choose every video with a recommendation model instead of from the people you follow Ask whether the moat everyone believes in is really what users value, or only what incumbents have. Paid off
- Use different decision-making processes for irreversible and reversible decisions, and fight the tendency of large organisations to treat every decision as irreversible. Before choosing a process, ask how reversible the decision is; speed is appropriate where mistakes are cheap to undo. Paid off
- End its Netflix distribution deal, keep its films for its own service and launch Disney+ at a low price A supplier that becomes a rival must decide which business it is in, and pay for the answer in both. Mixed Sound process
- Publish the Transformer architecture openly, in keeping with academic norms Publishing a breakthrough is a strategic choice; if you share the idea, your advantage has to come from how fast you turn it into a product. Mixed Sound process
- Halt development of 7-nanometre and more advanced processes and concentrate on established ones In a scale business, the decision to stop is often forced by the customers who left first. Mixed Sound process
- Buy GitHub, the main home of open-source development, for $7.5 billion Incumbents can join a movement they opposed, if they change their behaviour before their branding. Paid off Sound process
- Change licences from open source to source-available terms that prevent cloud providers from offering the software as a service In a commons, the right to fork is the community’s veto, and changing the rules invites its use. Backfired Sound process
- Strip a virtual machine monitor down to the minimum so that microVMs start like processes When a trade-off is unacceptable to your customers, question whether it is real. Paid off
- Re-rank the feed for “meaningful social interactions” Before you optimise a proxy, ask what the worst content that scores well on it would be. Mixed
- Reduce recommendations of “borderline” videos that came close to violating its rules, without removing them What a system chooses to amplify is a decision distinct from what it allows, and should be governed as one. Mixed Sound process
- Withhold the full GPT-2 model over misuse concerns and release it in stages When a risk is new and hard to measure, a reversible, staged release buys information cheaply. Mixed Sound process
- Render pages on the server and hydrate only small “islands” of interactivity When the pendulum swings back, it lands somewhere new; look for what has changed since the last time. Paid off
- Build advanced fabs in Arizona, under pressure from the US government When a supplier becomes a matter of national security, the location of its factories becomes part of the product. Too early Sound process
- Set the merchant discount rate on UPI and RuPay debit payments to zero by law Free to the user is never free; decide deliberately who pays, or the market will decide for you. Mixed Sound process
- Deliberately break Apple’s and Google’s payment rules in Fortnite, invite its removal from both stores and sue both companies Challenging a platform’s rules may require a challenger large enough to survive the platform’s response. Mixed Sound process
- Load laboratory results into a spreadsheet format with a fixed row limit as part of the national Covid-19 reporting pipeline Every tool has limits; find them before the data does. Backfired Poor process
- Rename 27 human genes whose symbols spreadsheets turned into dates When a tool is universal, it is often cheaper to change your conventions than to change it, but notice what that says about who shapes whom. Paid off Sound process
- Store notes as plain Markdown files on the user’s own computer Letting users leave easily can be the reason they stay. Paid off
- Respond to a court order requiring it to let developers link to outside payments by charging a 27 percent commission on such purchases and adding warning screens When a court or regulator tells you to change, minimal compliance can cost more than the change. Backfired Poor process
- Add a cheaper plan with advertising and charge for accounts shared outside the household Once a service is a habit, the terms it began with become negotiable. Paid off Sound process
- Require designated gatekeepers to allow alternative app stores, sideloading and outside payment, and ban self-preferencing Rules written in advance change behaviour only if their enforcement is credible. Too early Sound process
- Fill the main feed with full-screen recommended videos from accounts users did not follow, following TikTok Changing what a product is for its existing users needs their consent, or at least their patience. Mixed Sound process
- Require the largest platforms to explain their recommender systems and offer at least one option not based on profiling Giving people a choice matters less than which option you make the default. Too early Sound process
- Release a free chat interface to an existing model as a “research preview” The interface that lets ordinary people try a capability can matter more than the next improvement in the capability. Paid off Sound process
- Release the weights of its large language models for broad use under a custom licence, rather than offering them only through an API Openness can be a strategy as well as a principle, and the two are worth telling apart. Too early Sound process
- Add Python and an AI assistant inside the spreadsheet When you make a powerful tool easier to use, make it easier to check as well. Too early Sound process
- Announce a public chatbot quickly in response to ChatGPT, with a promotional demonstration When the known flaw of a technology is that it is confidently wrong, the launch itself must be checked against that flaw. Mixed Weak process
- Release capable language models with downloadable weights that others could run and modify If a technology complements your business rather than being it, giving it away can weaken competitors more than selling it would strengthen you. Mixed Sound process
- Put an OpenAI model into its search engine within weeks of ChatGPT’s launch, then cap conversations when it misbehaved A challenger can afford public experiments that an incumbent cannot; plan the limits you will add before you need them. Mixed Sound process
- Make the word processor write: drafts, rewrites and summaries, priced into subscriptions When you automate the core activity, decide deliberately whether to do the work for users or to make them better at it. Too early
- Add AI assistants that summarise, triage and draft messages Before automating an activity, ask whether it should happen at all. Too early
- Let a model read a person’s notes and answer questions grounded in them When AI removes effort, ask whether the effort was the point. Too early
- Cut about 10,000 jobs and 5,000 open roles, remove layers of management and cancel lower-priority projects, while protecting investment in AI and the long-term technology bets. Fewer layers and smaller management spans can speed decisions; measure the number of layers between a decision-maker and the work. Paid off
- Put AI-generated answers at the top of the results page, above the links When you answer the question yourself, you take on responsibility for the answer and for the people who supplied it. Too early Sound process
- Price AI agents by the conversation or action they handle, rather than by human user When technology changes the unit of value, the pricing unit must follow it, or a competitor will. Too early Sound process
- Let a website chatbot answer policy questions, then argue in a dispute that the chatbot was responsible for its own words Whatever your AI says to customers, you have said. Backfired Poor process
- Replace much of customer service with an AI assistant, then reverse course and hire people again Measure AI on the cases that matter most, not on the share of cases it can close. Backfired Weak process
- Release a strong reasoning model openly, with a technical report emphasising low training cost In a market that assumes scale is the only advantage, a credible demonstration of efficiency can move more than a better product. Paid off Sound process
- Add a reward for users’ immediate thumbs-up reactions to the main ChatGPT model, then roll it back If you optimise a product for momentary approval, it will learn to flatter. Backfired Weak process
- Test advertising in ChatGPT for free and low-priced tiers When a product that answers questions takes advertising, its credibility depends on keeping the two visibly separate. Too early Sound process
No decisions match these filters.