No. We have a lot of customers, and we have a lot of research into our installed base. We also watch industry trends pretty carefully. But in the end, for something this complicated, it's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Question
What is the worst advice you received that you followed anyway?
Failure & regret
So, look, I read lots of books, lots of them, you know, especially when I went from programmer to a business, realizing I have to just learn business really quick. I got really dismayed with the quality of business books pretty quickly, because frankly, I think the business books are largely written by the people who have time, who are not the people who actually build companies, frankly.
David Senra, David Senra's podcast, David Senra (published episode transcript), 2026 source ↗
Others on this question
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Steve Jobs
Co-founder and chief executive of Apple; co-founder of NeXT; chief executive of Pixar
Recorded
Andy Reinhardt, Business Week Q&A in the Apple boardroom, extended online-only version, 25 May 1998
source ↗
Daniel Ek
Co-founder and former chief executive of Spotify
Many people talk about a willingness to have failures. I hate failures. I don't think you should strike to make failures. I think it's OK to make mistakes – but by the time they become real failures, you probably should have discovered them much earlier.
John Banville
Novelist; winner of the Booker Prize, 2005
But my own mottos are, “Don’t imagine for a moment that you’re going to be able to express yourself.” ... And most aspiring artists think, “I have something to say.”
Yo-Yo Ma
Cellist
Perfection is always a desired goal, but it cannot be a primary goal. Expression has to be the primary goal, because otherwise, there is no need for an actual person to be there.
Recorded
Voice of America, VOA feature, January 2009, Voice of America, 2 November 2009
source ↗
More from Tobias Lütke
View profile →So I really tried everything, including, you know, just how to build the team in such a way that I delegate everything, and I have my different business lines, and arrange things. This is sort of after the IPO, and I realized I have to be a very “serious” public company CEO. And so it almost killed the company, honestly.
Recorded
David Senra, David Senra's podcast, David Senra (published episode transcript), 2026
source ↗
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