(Canadian here, but the ads are similar and we get lots of US channels.)
>At most, they would say "our fuel consumption is X lower than the nearest competitor".
This is what usually happens. It's only when a competitor is so well-regarded that people wouldn't even consider the company running the ad that they mention names.
For example, fuel econonmy and the Prius and almost inseparable in people's minds thanks to good marketing, to the point that someone shopping for an efficient car would probably not even consider Ford unless you challenged their assumptions with a surprising fact (that the Ford had better MPG than the Prius).
It's like the "Droid does" ads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52TSXwj774) - the iPhone was so dominant that they basically had to say, "You think that Apple/Toyota is the best in this field? Well guess what, we're better!"
My head is more often buried in code than in the product's UI. Our QA team has a better nose for when interaction or UI details are off than I do. In general, they spend more time using the application, and have a better instinct for when a given behaviour is wrong.
Some of the bugs they report would fall under the automatically testable category, but many don't.
I suspect that dogfooding is more effective at companies where the product itself is useful to developers or is a consumer app. e.g. Basecamp, FogBugz, Facebook, Netflix, Gmail, etc.
A second point would be that the time you spend automating tasks has other payoffs, in the form of learning and inspiration.
For instance, I suspect that part of the inspiration for Appointment Reminder came from Patrick's own realization of how valuable the automation of small tasks can be (chasing down missed appointments, in this case).
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To go off on another tangent, this is akin to eliminating technical debt from your workflow. By taking time to "refactor" certain tasks by doing them in a more efficient way, you get a net savings going forward. You can increase your ability to take on new tasks by increasing the efficiency of existing ones.
In keeping with the refactoring theme, if you have tasks that don't scale well, you may need to spend more time on them in a crisis. For example, in the event of a site outage you might suddenly have a deluge of support emails. Having support tickets be automatically created would save you n*60 seconds of copy/pasting.
I was trying to point out that successful poker players might be a part of the same group they're "preying on" - those with gambling addictions. Of course, as you said, they're successful, so the addiction might not be considered a problem.
However, if it is an addiction they may be financially successful, but unable to psychologically satisfy their their appetite for money or risk.
I wouldn't say that any serial startup founder has an "entrepreneurship problem", but if they were never satisfied with their accomplishments, I would view that as a negative.
The quote from the article was:
>"[T]hey still want more. You're never happy."
I would consider that anyone who repeats a cycle of behaviour with the goal of achieving happiness or satisfaction but who always feels disappointed or unsettled might have a problem.
>Your job becomes preying on people with gambling problems
Or perhaps you have a gambling problem, but are successful enough to deny it.
FTA:
> "Looking back, what I've figured out," he says, "is that no matter the amount of money poker players win, they still want more. You're never happy."
>At most, they would say "our fuel consumption is X lower than the nearest competitor".
This is what usually happens. It's only when a competitor is so well-regarded that people wouldn't even consider the company running the ad that they mention names.
For example, fuel econonmy and the Prius and almost inseparable in people's minds thanks to good marketing, to the point that someone shopping for an efficient car would probably not even consider Ford unless you challenged their assumptions with a surprising fact (that the Ford had better MPG than the Prius).
It's like the "Droid does" ads (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52TSXwj774) - the iPhone was so dominant that they basically had to say, "You think that Apple/Toyota is the best in this field? Well guess what, we're better!"