In a recent conversation over in her Discord server, Cassidy shared a brilliant question you can ask during job interviews:

What's the most important thing: the product, the customers, or the employees?

There isn't a right answer, she added, but it's interesting to see how people navigate it and if answers differ between different interviewers.

To say product implies you're setting out to build the best thing possible based on your vision, which is admirable, but at the potential cost of customers/users and the team building it.

To say customers implies that they can influence a product roadmap, which makes sense if you have the "right customers" but could jeopardize your own product vision. At times, I imagine this option could also challenge morale for employees dependent on context.

To say employees makes the most sense in a job interview context, but I'm not sure it ever really holds? Ultimately, if product needs change and you aren't needed, a sensible business would probably let you go rather than reskill you. If large customer demands your time and energy most businesses will have you work more. As a single manager you might be able to protect your team, but across a company I think not.

In reality, you don't solely choose one as an organization, but one will always come out on top in moments where you have to pick one concern. Maybe they shift over time as the need for profit or external factors shift you away from your ideals. I don't know, but an interesting thought exercise nonetheless.

Edit: I shared this back in the community server and a nice discourse took place. I think pigeon summed it up nicely:

imo, you can’t have one without the other two. If any of them individually stray too far, they affect the other two. And the chase of unlimited growth, is what strains these individual ones and why they can’t scale together ultimately creating this as a philosophical question.

And, of course, that this is a trick bait question. So if you want to have fun at your interviewer's expense, this is the question to ask.