A few days ago Googler Steve Yegge accidently posted an internal memo to the world about Google’s struggles with building products. As embarrassing for Steve as it might have been (it has now been taken of his Google+ page), it is a very interesting read that gives a good candid insight into a two of the biggest companies in our industry, Amazon and Google. Steve compares Google’s product-first to Amazon’s platform-first approache; he argues strongly for the platform-first approach, for eating your own dog food, for not being so arrogant as to try to deliver a product that is right for everyone, and why a platform cannot be developed as an afterthought.

“A product is useless without a platform, or more precisely and accurately, a platform-less product will always be replaced by an equivalent platform-ized product.” – Steve Yegge

If you are in software development, this is a must read. Head over to Silicon Angle to read the full text.