The Engineering Trap

The sleek screens at Moscone Center glowed with promise. Every feature Facebook had - and more. Elegant privacy controls. Seamless sharing. Deep integration with Gmail's massive user base.

Google+ wasn't just launching a social network; they were engineering a better one.

The numbers seemed destiny-defining: 10 million signups in two weeks. One thousand dedicated employees. $585 million invested in perfection.

Yet by 2015, an uncomfortable truth emerged: while 540 million users had registered, fewer than 10% spent more than five seconds on the platform.

The engineering was flawless. The interface was beautiful. The features were superior.

And nobody cared.

Google's VP of Product Bradley Horowitz later revealed their blind spot: People don't join social networks for better features—they join to connect with friends who are already there.

This wasn't just one company's mistake. It exposed a seductive fallacy that plagues innovators across industries: the belief that superior technology inevitably wins. That if you build it better, users will come.

This engineering mindset fails spectacularly when human needs drive decisions.

Think of the restaurant owner who perfects every recipe but neglects atmosphere.

Or the public speaker who memorizes every word but fails to read the room.

Or the dating app that optimizes algorithms while ignoring human chemistry.

What makes this trap so seductive is that it feels like rigorous thinking. Metrics, features, optimization - these are tangible problems we can solve.

It's far messier to ask "What makes people feel connected?" or "Why do they really come here?"

The essential question isn't "How can we make it better?" but "What would make this matter to someone's life?"

You can build the perfect product for a need that doesn't exist. Or you can build an imperfect product that people can't live without.

Choose wisely.