Found this blog post to very revealing, although not entirely the way others do.
Expressing openly and owning these two decisions (to focus on build vs. buy & simplicity vs. user customization) is admirable, but the slippery rhetoric undermines these mightily.
There are many shrewdly baked-in messages and denials that are far afield from above:
- No has solved the problem that we set out to solve in personal finance. In other words, yeah, I know I said Mint won, but we didn’t really lose to Mint – no one has won!
- Circumstances conspired to make me CEO. Er, perhaps another decision was to not have the humility to bring in a more qualified CEO. Since we’re all being so honest.
- Our product was just as good as there’s other than these 2 facts. In other words, I created and know how to execute at the level that Mint did. Of course you do – you’re in the job market!
I’ve heard this 'falling on the sword' rhetoric from CEOs of a failed company as a public way of engendering praise. It’s politically disingenuous because -of course you’re responsible- – everyone knows that claiming otherwise is horrible PR for yourself. The purpose of the post to bake in all the rationalization of how the decisions were right given in the information, you’re of high character, and get that personal brand out there in a controlled way. And that’s the way to ‘keep the focus on making the user happy’