Success Quote by Scott Cook

"Be dramatically willing" is a tell: Cook isn’t pitching customer focus as a polite corporate value, he’s framing it as theater with teeth. The word dramatically signals a public, legible commitment - the kind that convinces both customers and employees because it creates irreversible consequences. It’s not enough to claim you’re customer-centric; you have to make moves that look, internally, like heresy.

The line’s most pointed subtext is about self-cannibalization, a taboo in mature companies. “Obsoleting your own stuff” names the real cost of listening: it forces you to admit that your best-selling product, your flagship feature, even your proudest roadmap might be the wrong answer now. That’s a direct challenge to the internal constituencies that usually run the show - revenue owners, legacy teams, and executives invested in yesterday’s wins. Customer obsession becomes a governance model: it authorizes product teams to break what’s working before the market breaks it for them.

Contextually, this reads like Silicon Valley’s post-innovator’s-dilemma catechism, especially from a founder/operator (Cook co-founded Intuit) who’s seen how easy it is to confuse protecting a business with protecting customers. The “at all costs” flourish is intentionally extreme, but the extremity is the point. It’s a permission slip for disruption from within, and a warning that the most dangerous competitor is often your own past success.