What Thanos’ Snap Can Teach Us About Product Development
In this post, I am going to examine Thanos from Avengers Infinity war. If you have watched the movie, you must be aware that this beloved villain is obsessed with the idea of bringing stability to the universe. He strongly “believed” that the only way to save life was to reduce its number for the sake of universal balance. His beliefs were based on his past experiences from his home planet — Titan. Thanos had predicted the downfall of Titan and suggested killing half the population of the planet to solve the problem, his idea was considered too drastic and was dismissed by his people. This lead to the ultimate downfall of the planet. Titan’s fall weighed heavily on Thanos’ conscience. He became even more resolute in his belief of bringing stability by exterminating half of life in the universe. In order to achieve his goal, Thanos decided to gather all infinity stones thereby becoming the most powerful being in the universe. Thanos had ultimately triumphed over his enemies once he completed the Infinity Gauntlet and destroyed half of the life within the universe at the snap of his fingers.
1. Married to One Single Idea
So what’s wrong with Thanos’ strategy? Before going for the scale up (destroying half of the life in the universe), the mad Titan had conducted several pilots by destroying half of all life within the planets he conquered — which makes perfect sense. However, Thanos’ is a classic example of product developers who are madly in love with one idea. He surrounded himself with those who were completely faithful and devoted to him & his idea — members of the black order. Anyone who opposed his ideology was not entertained. Had he been open to consider opinions different from his own, he could have come up with a more rational solution rather than going to this extreme. One important lesson here is listening. It’s important to listen to criticism and more importantly understand the rationale behind it. Thanos was caught in the infinite feedback loop of self-righteousness.
2. Failure to Understand the Users
The sun continuously pelts the Earth with thousands of times the amount of energy required by all of its habitats. Mars is slightly more than half the size of Earth. One may ask, how difficult is to make Mars habitable or Earth more energy efficient with reality & space stones at one’s disposal? Thanos was under the idea that one golden bullet can solve all problems. But not all our users are the same. Different planets have different needs. Consider Groot’s home planet which must be full of tree-like individuals. As we all know trees are autotrophs and are able to make energy-containing organic molecules from the inorganic raw material. What is suitable for Titan might not work on a planet full of intelligent tree-like beings.
3. Patience, Planning & Plan B for failure
Thanos had the best resources in the universe and a genuine problem to solve. What he lacked were patience and planning. Immediately, after acquiring all the infinity stones he rushed into the grand scale up. He utilized all his resources in executing what he assumed was right without any good backup plan. Thanos’ final snap inflicted damages in his Gauntlet making him weaker. Good product developers never rush into a solution without proper planning.
4. Importance of a Great Team
When Thanos says, “Fine, I’ll do it myself” it depicts his initial failure as a team builder. Before taking the matters into his own hands (pun intended), Thanos tried to accomplish his goals through others. All his men failed to get him any stone. Loki was handled by the Avengers, Ronan was slain by the Guardians. Ronan went to the extent of betraying Thanos. After acquiring the stone and having seen its true destructive capabilities he decided against giving it to Thanos. Thanos was no doubt an excellent individual contributor but he failed as a hiring manager. Thanos fixed his early mistakes and built Black order with individuals who were insanely loyal to him. He showed great leadership qualities by jumping into the game with them and obtaining the stones he needed himself.
5. Assumptions?
However, we are making an assumption here i.e. — Thanos will be eventually defeated in Avengers 4. Assumptions too can be fatal for a product. I don’t know how the world will look like after Thanos’ snap. So let’s not rush into any conclusion without proper evidence. I will wait patiently till 2019 to listen to what the Titan has to say. Until then let’s remember the wise words from the Titan himself:
“The hardest choices require the strongest wills.”
