Just because someone has an important title at a big company doesn’t mean they are actually good at what they do.

In my own experience, even at fairly big companies, there are only a few people that actually know what they’re doing and have an impact...

In engineering, there are typically just a couple of engineers who (1) know the codebase super well and (2) are capable enough to move fast.

In design, there’s usually just one “mind” who sets the tone for design at the company.

In product, there’s often just one product manager that is so good, that they are driving the entire ship for the entire company’s core product.

This is for a reason. The more people you put on making a decision to solving a problem, the longer it takes to solve.

If you throw 10 designers into a room to make a collective decision, they’ll argue about color palettes for a month.

It doesn’t mean that other people are not working and adding value, I just don’t think I’d consider them to be experts and I certainly wouldn’t take advice from them for my own business.

So next time you hear about a fancy expert who did XYZ at BIG_NAME_COMPANY, remember this. There’s a good chance they were just a butt in a seat.

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Update:

https://twitter.com/thepatwalls/status/1341751279643553793

Someone just told me about Price's Law. Very cool!