Who Should Lead a Technology Company?
There is a well-known observation from Steve Jobs, shared in his 1995 The Lost Interview: companies start by building great products, achieve success, and then gradually lose their edge as commercial priorities begin to dominate product thinking. What initially looks like growth eventually leads to a decline in quality, followed by a loss of customer trust.
This is not just a story about Apple. Similar patterns have been observed across the technology industry, particularly in companies that reached a dominant market position and then struggled to maintain the same level of product excellence that made them successful in the first place.
This is a question that has occupied me for quite some time:
who should lead a company – the builder or the seller?
The answer is often presented as a binary choice, but in reality, the situation is far more nuanced.
Beyond the Builder vs. Seller Debate
There is strong evidence that companies led by founders or individuals with a deep product background tend to outperform in innovation-driven environments. This is especially true in technology sectors where differentiation is built on product quality, technical depth, and long-term vision.
This discussion is not limited to the early days of Silicon Valley. Throughout the 2010s and beyond, researchers continued to examine the relationship between leadership style, innovation, and long-term company performance. Multiple studies focusing on founder-led organizations, CEO backgrounds, and innovation output consistently highlighted the importance of maintaining strong product orientation in technology-driven businesses.
At the same time, research and industry practice clearly show that commercially driven leadership is not inherently detrimental. In fact, companies operating in competitive and highly dynamic markets often benefit significantly from strong sales and marketing capabilities, particularly when it comes to scaling, positioning, and customer acquisition.
The real issue, therefore, is not whether a company is led by a builder or a seller, but whether it is able to maintain the right balance between product integrity and commercial execution.
When Growth Starts to Undermine the Product
The risk emerges when growth becomes the dominant driver of decision-making and product considerations are gradually deprioritized. In such scenarios, commercial success can create a false sense of security, masking underlying weaknesses in the product.
Over time, this can lead to:
- decisions optimized for short-term revenue rather than long-term value
- reduced investment in product development and innovation
- increasing distance between what is being sold and what customers actually need
By the time these issues become visible externally, the company has often already lost its competitive advantage.
Why This Matters in the Messaging Industry
In the messaging and CPaaS space, this dynamic is particularly critical.
At first glance, the industry can appear to be driven primarily by volume – more traffic, more connections, more routes. However, the true value of a messaging platform lies in factors that are far less visible, but significantly more important: delivery quality, routing intelligence, security, compliance, and overall reliability.
These are not elements that can be compensated for through sales efforts alone. They are the result of continuous product development, technical expertise, and long-term commitment to quality.
At HORISEN, this has always been a central consideration. Since 2017, when we made the strategic decision to remain vendor-neutral and focus exclusively on the development of messaging technology, we have seen firsthand how quickly short-term optimization can undermine long-term performance. Platforms that prioritize volume over quality may achieve temporary growth, but they ultimately face challenges in maintaining customer trust, operational stability, and sustainable differentiation in the market.
Product as the Foundation of Sustainable Growth
Sustainable growth in technology companies is built on a strong product foundation. This does not mean that commercial functions are secondary, but rather that they must operate in alignment with product capabilities and limitations.
In practical terms, this means:
- product strategy defines the direction of the company
- commercial teams scale what the product can reliably deliver
- leadership ensures that growth does not compromise quality
This approach is particularly important in infrastructure-oriented industries such as messaging, where the impact of product decisions is often immediate and directly visible to end users.
The Role of Leadership
Effective leadership in this context is not about choosing between building and selling. It is about understanding both, while ensuring that product truth remains the guiding principle.
Leaders who are too heavily focused on product may struggle to scale, while those who prioritize commercial outcomes without sufficient product understanding risk eroding the very value they are trying to grow.
The most successful companies are therefore led by individuals who are able to integrate these perspectives, maintaining a strong product orientation while enabling efficient and scalable go-to-market execution.
A Perspective from HORISEN
From my perspective, the discussion is not about whether sales or product is more important. Both are essential, but they serve different roles.
Ever since 2017, our growth has been closely connected to the growth of our customers. In many cases, this meant building from scratch – developing engines capable of horizontal scalability, creating platforms that could support the expansion of our customers’ businesses, and ultimately building a messaging operating system designed to cover the entire messaging ecosystem.
Our focus has always been on developing robust, reliable, and secure messaging technology while ensuring that our solutions can scale together with the businesses that rely on them. This balance is what enables long-term relationships, operational stability, and sustainable growth.
In an industry where trust and performance are critical, product quality cannot be an afterthought. It must remain at the core of every strategic decision.
So, who should lead a company – the builder or the seller?
The evidence suggests that the most effective leadership model is not defined by one or the other, but by the ability to maintain a strong product-driven foundation while enabling commercial success.
Over the past 25 years, I have come to realize that this balance is not only something that shaped HORISEN, but also something that shaped me personally as a CEO. As the company evolved from its early stages into a global messaging technology provider, I evolved with it – learning both the importance of building strong technology foundations and the importance of bringing those solutions successfully to the market.
Perhaps that is why I never truly saw this as a choice between two opposing worlds.
The builder understands how to create long-term value.
The seller understands how to scale it.
Technology companies need both perspectives. But in industries like messaging, where trust, reliability, and performance define long-term success, product truth must always remain the foundation.
In other words, the question is not only who leads, but what leads.
And in technology companies – especially in messaging – it should always be the product.
Fabrizio Salanitri
Founder & CEO, HORISEN
