Amir has discussed this Leadership Principle in the first issue of his newsletter. No wonder that he started with this as this is undoubtedly the number one, the most important principle of all: Customer Obsession. However, I'd like to explore this LP from a slightly different perspective: how Customer Obsession can be the guiding light in the storm of a technology hype.
Customer Obsession: Your Shield Against the Innovation Graveyard
Picture this scene. It's Monday morning. Your CEO storms into the leadership meeting, fresh from a conference where every competitor claimed they're "AI-first" now.
"We need AI! NOW! Our competitors are using it. We'll be left behind! The board is asking questions! Find something - anything - we can announce next quarter!"
Sound familiar?
This is playing out in conference rooms everywhere. And it's exactly how products end up in what we can call the Innovation Graveyard – that expensive cemetery where good companies bury bad tech initiatives.
The FOMO Death Spiral
I've been watching this movie on repeat for two decades. Same plot, different technology. Big data in 2012. Blockchain in 2017. And now AI.
Here's how it goes:
Act 1: The Panic Leadership reads that McKinsey report claiming AI will add $13 trillion to global GDP by 2030. Competitors announce initiatives. The directive comes down: "We need this yesterday!"
Act 2: The Scramble The IT team – who've been secretly tinkering with this tech as a hobby for two years – suddenly gets the green light. Vendors circle like sharks, each with the "perfect" use case. Everyone's desperately searching for a problem that fits the solution.
Act 3: The Shiny New Product Six months and several hundred thousand euros later, something ships. It demos beautifully. Marketing loves it. The CEO can finally tell the board "we have AI." Everyone exhales.
Act 4: The Slow Death Real users try it. They don't get it. Adoption flatlines. Remember Walmart's Jetblack? They burned through $300 million on an AI personal shopping service that nobody wanted. The AI Pin from Humane Inc? Only 10,000 units shipped in the first 5 months. Dead within a year.
Act 5: The Antibody Effect This is what really kills me. Leadership concludes: "This technology isn't for us. Our market/industry/customers are different." For the next 3-5 years, anyone suggesting projects with that technology gets shut down immediately. "We tried that. It doesn't work here."
The company hasn't just wasted money. It's developed organizational antibodies against the very technology it will desperately need when real use cases emerge.
Welcome to FOMO-Driven Development
There's actually a name for this pattern: FOMO-Driven Development (FDD). It's when technology choices are driven by Fear Of Missing Out rather than actual business needs.
You're in FDD mode when you hear:
"Our competitors are all using AI, we need to announce something"
"The board keeps asking about our blockchain strategy"
"Can't we just find some use case for this technology?"
"Everyone at the conference was talking about it"
The real cost isn't the wasted budget. When an FDD project fails, the organization doesn't just lose money. It loses faith in the technology itself. That chatbot nobody used? Now ALL conversational AI is "proven not to work." That blockchain pilot that solved nothing? The company won't touch distributed ledgers for years.
Customer Obsession: Your North Star in the Storm
Amazon's first leadership principle offers the antidote. It's deceptively simple: Customer Obsession.
"Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers."
Notice what it doesn't say? It doesn't say "obsess over technology." It doesn't say "panic about competitors."
The principle forces a question that cuts through all the noise: What customer problem are we solving?
Not "How can we use AI?" Not "What are competitors doing?" But "What are customers struggling with?"
The Amazon Playbook in Action
Remember when ChatGPT launched in November 2022? Every retailer panicked about being left behind. Amazon – sitting on AWS, one of the largest AI infrastructures on the planet – could have rushed something out.
Instead, they waited. For 15 months (and almost two years in Europe).
They didn't lack technical capability. They'd been using machine learning since 2007. Internal teams had GenAI tools by early 2023. They probably had thousands of ideas bubbling up from eager engineers.
But they waited. They searched for the right customer problem.
The problem they eventually zeroed in on? Something that had frustrated online shoppers since the dawn of e-commerce: How do you replicate the experience of talking to a knowledgeable shop assistant when you're shopping online? That trusted person who knows the products, understands what you're looking for, and can guide you to the right choice?
That's when they launched Rufus. Not because AI was trendy. Not because shareholders were asking. But because AI could finally solve a decades-old customer frustration.
Fall in Love with Problems, Not Solutions
This is the discipline Customer Obsession demands. When everyone's shouting "We need AI!", you ask "What customer problem have we been unable to solve until now?"
The problems that really matter aren't new. They've been sitting there for years:
Your sales team spends 70% of their time on admin instead of selling
Customers can't get expert help outside business hours
Your product recommendations feel generic and unloved
Training new employees takes months before they're effective
These aren't AI problems. They're customer problems. AI might be the answer – or it might not.
Breaking the FOMO Cycle
Here's how to know if you're building something real or just feeding the FOMO:
Problem-Driven Development looks like:
The project is named after the problem it solves ("Customer Response Acceleration" not "Our AI Initiative")
Success metrics focus on customer outcomes, not launch dates
The team can articulate the specific customer frustration being addressed
Timeline is driven by getting it right, not external deadlines
FOMO-Driven Development looks like:
The vendor suggested the use case
Timeline is driven by a conference, board meeting, or competitor announcement
Nobody can clearly explain which customers asked for this
Success is measured by having something to announce
The Immunity Check
Try this exercise – it's painful but illuminating. List every major technology your organization has "tried" and rejected in the past decade. For each one, ask:
Did we start with customer problems or with the technology?
Did we measure success by customer outcomes or by launching something?
Have we refused to reconsider this technology since?
If you're like most organizations, you'll discover you've vaccinated yourself against several technologies that could transform your business – not because they don't work, but because you implemented them backwards.
Your Path Forward
The good news? You can break this cycle. But it requires three things:
First, admit the problem wasn't the technology – it was the approach.
Second, start fresh with customer problems, not technology capabilities. Those problems that have been annoying your customers for years? List them. For each one, ask: "Could AI make this economically viable now?" If yes, that's a real opportunity. If no, keep looking.
Third, be patient. Amazon took 15 months to launch Rufus. They had every technical capability from day one. What they waited for was clarity on the right customer problem to solve.
Because here's the truth: the companies that win with AI won't be the ones who moved fastest. They'll be the ones who stayed obsessed with the right thing.
Their customers.
Sources:
MIT Sloan Management Review: "The Digital Transformation Failure Rate" (2023)
BCG: "Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success" (2022)
McKinsey Global Institute: "Notes from the AI Frontier" (2023)
Harvard Business Review: "Why Digital Transformations Fail" (2023)
Watch Attila apeak about innovation on the Digital Transformation & AI for Humans podcast.