Time & Perspective Quote by David Rose

Strategy is a luxury item; sales are the oxygen. David Rose’s line carries the plainspoken realism you’d expect from a working musician who lived through an era when “creative industries” weren’t cushioned by venture capital narratives or endless runway. He’s not romanticizing instinct over intellect so much as insisting on a hierarchy: you can hire brains, but you can’t brainstorm your way out of an audience that isn’t buying.

The intent is managerial and a little defensive. Rose is justifying hiring priorities in a way that sounds empowering (“strategic thinker”) while quietly narrowing the definition of value to outcomes you can count. That “even more important” pivot is the tell: strategy, in his framing, is secondary to product-market fit, the hit record, the tour that sells out, the arrangement that gets replayed. It’s an argument against the tempting corporate drift where planning becomes a substitute for making something people want.

The subtext is also a critique of professionalization. “Strategize” can become a verb people use to signal sophistication when what they’re really doing is avoiding risk: tweaking positioning, discussing audiences, refining memos. Rose punctures that with a blunt, almost blue-collar logic: no successful product, no company, no jobs, no strategy department.

Context matters here. Rose’s lifetime spans radio’s boom, the big-band economy, the rise of TV, and the industrialization of entertainment. In those systems, market feedback was immediate and unforgiving. His quote is a reminder that in culture, the spreadsheets may be new, but the old rule holds: if the song doesn’t land, the meeting doesn’t matter.