Tony Stark - Best Product Manager Ever?
It’s not a secret I like Iron Man. Even if that now, in the Marvel universe, Tony Stark is a total ass.
With that being said, I think it’s pretty clear that Tony Stark is probably one of the best product managers technology-focused founders ever.
Update: See the comment thread with Bob Corrigan of ack/nak fame for the reason why I changed this. He’s totally right…but Stark still gives one hell of a demo.
Nevermind being a successful founder of a huge military-driven organization, but he’s at the centre of all of the products the organization creates and releases to their customers and the market(s) they occupy. While there are flashes / glances of this throughout the comics, it’s pretty defined within the movie. Obviously, I’m leaving aside how crazy that is for the size of company Stark is supposed to be. But, I digress.
If I could link to specific clips I would. However, I will say this - Stark’s product demo skills are unmatched. Here’s his pitch for a new product (a missile, called the Jericho).
*They* say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it… and it’s worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries’ Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won’t even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration… the Jericho.
Stark is every VC’s dream - he is both business savvy and incredibly technically savvy; not a lot unlike Bill Gates.
I’m sure Stark Industries / Enterprise / International (the name depends on where you are in the comic timeline) has seen some pretty brutal product and technical reviews go down in their halls - with engineers either out of jobs of reduced to tears after having Stark rip apart product specifications they have created.
Of course, I’m stretching things a bit here. What am I really trying to say? That an organization needs a Tony Stark in order to truly succeed? Of course not.
But, he does the same thing as any organization ever has in order to make it truly successful. He didn’t start out with all the crazy technology he currently has and billions of dollars. He started out being obsessed with building the best military weapons possible. That’s the point.
Google did the same thing. They didn’t start with Gmail, and Google Gears, and Picasa, and all that stuff. They started with search. They got that right, have billions of dollars today and a myriad of products. But…guess what?
They picked 1 thing (search), obsessed over it, and got it right. Then they made things more complex, and grew, etc… But they didn’t start out with the goal of being a billion dollar, 16,000 person organization.
Just like Stark obsesses over creating the best weapons technology around, products can only be successful if they start with 1 champion (a founder, CEO, product manager, etc…) and it solves a problem, and it’s obsessed over, ultimately by a group of people working to achieve a common set of goals.
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