The lone genius myth is one we need to stop believing

A while back, we went to an excellent talk at the V&A by Jean Touitou, the founder of French fashion label A.P.C.

A.P.C. is an interesting brand.

It was founded as a response to the over-the-top Parisian trends of the 1980s and became globally recognised without ever really joining the traditional fashion elite.

What stuck with us from Jean’s talk was just how much the idea of the ‘lone genius’ is still celebrated in fashion.

Take Karl Lagerfeld, ‘the most powerful man in fashion’, with his frenetic obsession with doing everything himself. Or Alexander McQueen, the controversy-courting ‘hooligan of English fashion.’

Touitou, however, approaches things differently. Even though the brand is clearly an extension of his creative vision, he was clear that none of it would exist without his team.

In fact, he spoke at length about why he rejects the lone genius stereotype, saying:

I am not a genius who works alone at night, surrounded by worshippers who never eat – and, as a matter of fact, we don’t work at night, and we do eat.

What product management strategy can learn from fashion

We see similar hero-worship in tech. The lone genius myth lives on in the narratives surrounding startup founders and headline-grabbing CEOs. Zuckerberg, Musk, Kalanick—despite the well-documented flaws in those stories.

We’d argue the myth is just another misguided innovation trope.

Founders, of course, play an essential role. They bring vision, confidence, and the ability to sell the idea. But a smart product management strategy acknowledges that these qualities alone won’t get you through the next phase or the one after that.

What matters is knowing your limits. And understanding what kind of support you’ll need around you.

• Are you equipped to handle the financials?
• Do you have someone to shape your positioning and messaging?
• Who’s steering the user research?
• When should you bring in strong design leadership?

That’s where things often go off track. Building a successful product doesn’t just rely on vision. It relies on knowing when to step back and let others lead.

Steve Jobs and the orchestration myth

Steve Jobs is often held up as the ultimate lone genius. The man who brought us the iPhone, the Mac, and “insanely great” everything. But that’s not how it actually worked.

Much like Touitou, Jobs understood what he wasn’t good at, and that his job wasn’t to do everything, but to surround himself with the right people.

He brought together the engineers, marketers, and designers who could deliver his vision. His genius was in the timing, the orchestration, and the alignment of those disciplines around a common goal.

As he allegedly said in the 2015 film:

I play the orchestra.

That’s product management strategy in a nutshell. It’s not about being the loudest or the smartest. It’s about knowing how and when to bring the right expertise into the room, and then getting out of the way when they do what they do best.

Don’t hire rock stars

As your product grows, so will your team. And that means your responsibility shifts. Your early hires will shape how things function, how fast you can move, and how well your team communicates. So it’s worth getting intentional about what kind of people you want to bring in.

We’ve seen it time and again: the teams that scale well aren’t made up of lone rockstars. They’re made up of people who know how to listen, collaborate, and iterate.

As Andy Budd of Clearleft once said:

Don’t hire rockstars but build a team that acts like a great rock band.

A strong product management strategy makes space for everyone in the band to contribute. It encourages teams to play to their strengths, not compete for the spotlight.

And that means looking beyond the CV. Cultural fit, communication style, and openness to feedback all matter just as much as raw skill.

If you’re time-poor (and let’s face it, most product leads are), it can be tempting to deprioritise team onboarding or skip steps in the hiring process. But investing early in helping your team understand the context they’re working in pays off. Clear goals, regular check-ins, and an aligned product vision can save you from constant fire-fighting down the road.

Product success isn’t a solo act

Touitou once described his team as “a group of people lined shoulder to shoulder” and said:

Don’t hire rockstars but build a team that acts like a great rock band.

That’s something every product leader should keep in mind. The best product managers know that the job isn’t to be the smartest person in the room. It’s to get the smartest people working well together.

If you’re wondering what makes a good product manager, it’s often less about technical skill and more about how well you can align different functions, communicate priorities, and manage trade-offs. The best ones create clarity, not chaos. They don’t do everything; they help others do their best work.

Building momentum through design leadership

One of the most overlooked areas in early-stage teams is design. Not because it’s not seen as important, but because it’s misunderstood. It’s often brought in too late, or treated as surface-level polish rather than a core strategic partner.

Strong design leadership helps you prioritise the right problems, make smarter decisions early, and deliver a product that users actually enjoy using. It also stops teams from building the wrong thing beautifully—which, let’s be honest, happens a lot.

Whether you’re scaling fast or just getting your product off the ground, make space for design to be part of the strategy conversations, not just the delivery ones.

Designers bring a unique lens to product thinking, one that balances user needs with business goals. If your product management strategy doesn’t include that input, you’re missing out.

The lone genius myth still lingers in fashion, tech, and startup culture. But when you zoom in on the people behind the most successful products, you find something else entirely: highly collaborative teams, thoughtful hiring, strong communication, and a shared sense of purpose.

Let’s retire the idea that one person alone can make a product great.

Behind every great product is a team that made it happen. Together.

 

Smart product management strategy starts with the right team.

We work with scaling B2B companies to embed design leadership, sharpen collaboration, and get better products out the door.

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