Product Dictatorship

I don't always agree with Arrington, but I think he's dead-right here:

Product should be a dictatorship. Not consensus driven. There are casualties. Hurt feelings. Angry users. But all of those things are necessary if you’re going to create something unique.

If you really want to innovate, you need to establish an outpost in uncharted territory. Then you can start with the UX/optimization work to polish and refine your vision. Lots of people in this industry today start with a weak wishy-washy vision and depend on constant user/AB testing and/or funnel optimizations to build their product. This might result in a successful business, but it bores me to tears. I'd rather fail big and fast with an outlandish vision than plod along conservatively towards mediocre success.