Dr. No: Kill Every Feature That Isn't the Strategy

“He soon discovered that product management was as much about avoiding distractions as producing breakthroughs. “As I took over product in the company,” Sacks remembered, “I kind of became, like, ‘Dr. No.’ Because I’d always have to say no to everyone’s stupid ideas... it was really important that we not squander our precious engineering bandwidth on ideas that didn’t make sense for the long-term strategy of the company.””

“Sacks’s pursuit of simplicity emerged as a rallying cry for the product team. “You would count the number of fields and the number of characters and, visually, the mind share of only doing what you must do on that page,” Denise Aptekar recalled. “That’s where a lot of my fundamental product instincts were formed.””