▲ 368 points
back
214 comments
> There's an oft told story about Jeff Bezos pausing a meeting to call his own customer service number - and waiting over 10 minutes for an answer.
One of my jobs was at a company that had developed at unhealthy amount of bureaucracy and politics. The product barely mattered to some because they were playing internal games of grandstanding, taking credit, and building their empires.
In meetings where were supposed to be talking about product direction and priorities I would some times pull out my phone and open the app to try to demonstrate some real problem with the service. The tone of the meeting would change to panic as certain product leads would try to do anything to stop me from showing what the real product did instead of their neatly prepared slide decks that showed a much nice story for the executives. I became the enemy for showing the actual product instead of their alternate world of KPIs and charts.
I work at a (government and extreme bureaucratic) organisation that builds apps used by field engineers.
I found out SSO was broken. They had to login to every app using the same account. Twice per day because the token live was 4 hours "for security".
I found out it was because they published these apps as PWAs, making them more isolated than normal apps.
I asked the product manager and he says the issue is "with Apple and Google", not his department. When asked why he chose PWAs for the apps he said this was easier to deploy, saves them developer accounts and such.
Since I can't force him to change I found a workaround: SSO works in PWAs if you use Edge on a recent Android version on a Samsung tablet. Lucky me we had bought Samsung tablets (this was not a requirement when purchasing I looked it up, just luck).
I asked the Intune manager about this and they said the field engineers should just set Edge as default in stead of Chrome.
When trying this on a company tablet it said: "Edge disabled by X group policy". That guys' department set the policy...
After they removed this I asked why it wasn't the default browser and he said this wasn't possible. I challenged him on this by Googling the Intune manual to set the default browser.
Later they said they had raised a support ticket with Microsoft for this.
On the internal Wiki I found a document describing the problem. It was dated 11 months before I joined.
I legitimately don’t understand how companies get to this point, especially when the C-suite is full of founders (or maybe that’s worse?). I can understand how people want to make their bosses happy, and that can cascade into constant bullshitting, but at some point why doesn’t the CTO / CEO / etc. say “I’m going to go have conversations with the workers to get their perspective?”
The U.S. Nuclear Navy, for all of its many flaws, gets this right. Generally at least once a year, the head of Naval Reactors - a four-star Admiral - tours every vessel, which may include a brief underway period. During this tour, the Admiral will talk to the engine room watchstanders, with all senior leadership removed. They’ll ask how daily life is, what they find challenging or annoying, what they like, etc. There’s obviously a lot of self-filtering (though sometimes not - Navy Nukes are not known for their social graces) that occurs, and also what a junior watchstander finds annoying may just be a required part of the job, but some useful signal is gathered.
Even outside of the nuclear program, one standout example was Admiral Zumwalt, who as Chief of Naval Operations implemented 70 different changes over his tenure as a direct result of talking to sailors, all of which were designed to improve quality of life, efficiency, or communication.
About 10 years ago now, when what would eventually become Oracle Cloud Infrastructure had just done an internal launch of the first availability domain, as we got ourselves read for public launch late in the year, several senior staff and engineers had to go do a presentation and demonstration of the product to Larry Ellison.
They did trial run after trial run, made sure trying to make sure there were no bugs in the demonstration path. They nailed it, presentation went smoothly, live demonstration just worked. Provisioned a bare metal instance, had it running hosting something within minutes of launch. Larry was suitably impressed, but the thing that most impressed him was that he'd been presented with an end-to-end live demonstration. It had never occurred to any of the folks involved to do it any other way, but apparently all too often, all he ever saw was slide shows from product teams, particularly when things were several months away from public launch.
I reflect on that situation from time to time, wondering at which stage you sort of go from expecting to see live demonstrations, to slide shows. I assume it just slowly slips away from you, one at a time until you're stuck in the land of "make believe we have a good product".
Amusing you picked that quote to quote because your job description is a dead ringer for Amazon work culture.
The fact that showing the actual product in a product meeting triggers panic tells you everything you need to know about how far things have drifted
The later part of that quoted passage ends with a possibly rhetorical question.
> ... When was the last time the CEO of the above company called their own customer support line?
So Bezos definitely hasn't done that in a long time. Definitely not in India. So I would say the answer ought to be: a CEO does that or has to do that only until the company becomes too big or has captured a sufficiently entrenched large slice of the market.
At one meeting to build out a new service as a next generation to a flagship AWS service that I worked on, I got to meet all the product leaders and managers.
At that meeting, I realized most of them had never used the product and see their claim to leadership role due to their the ability to manage up and down.
I use the product on my personal projects and I hated it with a passion.
The story is told in the recent book about Bezos and Amazon. The one by Brad Stone.
In my last role (engineering side) the VP of Product objected to me using the phrase "eating your own dogfood" because it was "gross" and she always interjected and replaced it with "drink your own champagne". I countered (privately) that was a feature; it's supposed to be a little unappetizing because you're early, building empathy and getting a different perspective (to a dog, dog food is delicious!). I think the difference in perspective succinctly illustrates the schism between trying to understand the customer experience asap, and the data-driven, kpi crowd where - conveniently - you can't discover these issues until it's too late.
I think the origin is in the phrase, "Will the dogs eat the dog food?" which was common VC-speak in the 90's and 00's, referencing dog food commercials that once ran on TV, and meaning something like "this has been made to sound great in an internal powerpoint presentation, but will customers actually like it?"
Attributed to a Microsoft exec in the 80s: https://www.geekwire.com/2025/eat-your-own-dog-food-how-micr...
In 2015, Marc Andreessen memorably said of Mixpanel's success at product-led growth: "The dogs are fucking jumping through the screen door to eat the dog food. And he hasn’t done any marketing yet." https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/18/tomorrows-adva...
That then led to the idea of "eating your own dog food", because if even you won't eat it, what credibility do you have saying that the other dogs will?
Yeah, I've never really been at all offended by the "eating your own dogfood" phrase, because I always saw that as being the point also.
I must admit, however, that the title of this article was too crass for me. I came very close to not reading it at all just because of the title. In my opinion, the article would be better served by something else, but I'm just not a big fan of bathroom humor in general.
I've heard exactly the same response before and I shared your reaction.
The other thing that makes "dogfood" make sense is that sometimes you aren't the direct target audience of the product. So: would you feed this to your own dog?
> "eating your own dogfood" because it was "gross
Interesting perspective. I watch a YouTube channel of a hunter who routinely cooks the same meal for himself and his dog, and even feeds his dog from the skillet where he cooked the meal. Many practical reasons for that but also the dog being the main tool in hunting and getting that food in the first place.
Interesting. I prefer "champagne" as it clarifies the goal: to make something curated, crafted, and desired. I've never interpreted the dogfood v. champagne difference as anti-empathy somehow.
Interesting, I wouldn’t think it matters that much though. If the phrase eating dogfood is unappetising to some when why not use the champagne analogy.
I’m the kind of person that just assumes customer service is going to be bad. I gird myself whenever I have to call a company and just deal with their gauntlet with patience, knowing the trick is to outlast them. It costs them money every time you call. I’ll often tell them I know that and assure them I will continue calling until the matter is resolved. It’s not fun, it’s just the way things sadly are.
My old man, however, still feels some kind of righteous indignation when he spends his hard earned money and doesn’t feel he’s getting what he paid for. He loves to give a piece of his mind to the companies that mistreat him, and he always says “And I hope my comments are being recorded for quality assurance!”
I agree with the broader point, but I'm perplexed that the author is talking about dogfooding as a "sacred practice in the tech industry" in the context of customer support. Among big tech companies, customer support usually isn't seen a part of the product. If you work at Facebook, Google, or Microsoft, you don't try to go through the non-existent consumer support channels to resolve issues with your account.
"Eat your own dog-food and smell your own farts" is just crass enough that people will actually remember and retell it. Nice work by the author's Comparative Memetics Division.
"Eat your own dog food" == experience your own product.
"Smell your own farts" == experience your entire product, including things that are typically unmentionables like customer service and billing
The thing about dogfooding is that you have to force it in many domains, and if you aren't careful it can push you towards solving issues your users don't actually have.
We've found ourselves trying to find this balance on Tritium. It's a word processor for lawyers, so has a specific narrow domain that allows us to provide a differentiated experience from Word. But if we try to use it like Word, we end up wanting generalized features that don't fit that strategy. I wrote a little about what we've come up with here: https://tritium.legal/blog/eat.
This is one of the compelling rationales for closed-source / commercial software in certain B2B SAAS domains. It seems like you just cannot adequately test the happy and sad paths from a QA perspective in FOSS unless it's (1) insanely successful or (2) a dev tool.
This describes quite well the huge advantage small companies have vs big companies.
(Motivated) people at small companies "care", and what I mean with that is they are responsible and can see a large enough portion of the customer experience that - if something is broken - they'll see the pain and try to address it.
At a big company no one cares. They of course care about their job, but their job is such a small fraction of the overall customer experience, that seeing their work having an impact on their customer is exceptionally difficult.
That's why large companies need to encode customer feedback into a system to imitate feedback cycles. Mostly in metrics. That's a very lossy way to capture signal, and leaves a lot to be desired, but so far it doesnt seem like anyone has come up with a better system.
To me, "dogfooding" isn't using your own product out of loyalty or some nondescript principle, as the author suggests. It's specifically about using your own product during its development as a means of testing while it's in its worst phase - literally eating dog food for a while.
It's the same horse manure, when architectonauts and developers aren't responsible for the operation of their Goldberg-inventions.
Another phrase that comes to mind is: no skin in the game.
To me "unaccountability" -- or whatever naming fits better -- needs its own circle of hell.
Two stupid calls I've had:
1) I call to cancel an insurance policy on a car I sold. I'm greeted by the IVR, press three to cancel a policy, we're off to a good start. Next follows a long speech about how I need to call a special number if I stuck in the middle east and need to get back home, general precautions I need to take and my rules and rights. All great information, except I've already indicated that I call to cancel a policy. The chance that I'm sitting in an airport in Bahrain, desperately trying to get home, yet I decide that now is a good time to go through and cancel unneeded insurance policies is absolutely zero. You already know why I'm calling, tailor the message to that.
2) Internet is out, for the second week. Customer service dude is typing in stuff, looking stuff up, trying to figure out why the case has been closed. "While we wait let me talk to you about our streaming bundles"... Dude, I know the boss is making you do this, but don't try to upsell a streaming bundle to a customer you can't even get online.
The doctors office is the worst though. Their entire system for guiding you through when to call and where to call take minutes for them to explain. The call it routed to the same people regardless. There are so many confusing and irrelevant messages from the system and in the end you are still routed to the same set of people.
Most of my calls to customer services is because selfservice online absolutely suck and can't do simple things. Every industry could save a fortune in callcenter costs if their websites was ever so slightly better. Often it's not even about being able to selfservice, it can just be providing the tiniest bit of actual information. Your call volume is larger than normal for the past five years, because your stupid website is getting worse every year.
Customer service has different meanings. Personally I prefer
good, simple and effective documentation. I hate having to use
a phone to explain problems. It's ok to do it in person, but
not my preferred way.
> It's all very well to experience your own product when it is working, but when was the last time anyone in the above organisation went through a "difficult" customer journey.
I kind of prefer companies that build products that never ever need anything. Not even warranty calls, because the thing just keeps on working.
What I noticed in the last few years was that we are too dependent on google search. Now that it sucks, finding high quality information has become harder - and AI trend is further ruining this, as everyone just has the AI summarize stuff now, which does not always work either.
There was a famous Brown and Williamson phone message, from late last century: https://nypost.com/1999/09/23/smoke-gets-in-your-eyes-when-y...
I actually have a recording of it (scratchy), but won't link it, because it's probably not worth it. It was a riot.
currently on the front page the post directly beneath this one was 25 years of eggs
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47427224
a happy coincidence.
This resonates. We run a medical device manufacturing operation. We used an ERP for years that claimed to specialize in our industry. In practice it was a bloated system designed by people who'd never worked on a manufacturing floor. Bank reconciliation felt like threading a needle in the dark. Simple tasks required five nested menus.
So we built our own. Went live on it a few months ago. The bugs we catch now are ones we catch because we're running real production on it every day. There's no substitute for being the one who has to suffer through your own software.
Some years back I was introduced to UK service consultancy Vanguard (and their "Vanguard Method"), essentially a systems thinking approach to improving service (not to be confused with the enormous US investment management company).
In their world, "smelling your own farts" (ie. listening to and, more importantly, understanding what matters to your customers using normative learning methods) isn't primarily about empathy, it's about getting knowledge so you can understand how to intervene in your company as a system.
Put that way, it's not a waste for decision-makers to listen to customer phonecalls, it's in fact the only way for them to gain the knowledge they need to understand what to do to improve their service (assuming that's their goal).
I just assume a lot of product managers have never used their products anymore, and it shows across the industry.
Have you ever tried to play Xbox live after not being signed in for a long time?
Have you ever tried to use smart search terms in the Amazon search box?
Have you ever tried to use these tv channel apps on a Roku?
Do Fridgeaire reps own their own appliances?
I’m just convinced people don’t use their own products where the people that use them and care are so few and far in between things are only getting enshrined.
I know a person. Ex-Googly. Doing his startup. Spent one year on a crazy complex product. Investors do not get it. Users do not get it. He spends 99% of the time explaining why his ideas are so good. You ask to try the product, weeks pass and just slides and video demos. When you eventually try it, it's so confusing and nothing really works. I tried to make him understand that the constraint he needs to fit is users being able to understand rapidly why it's useful to them and that it should work. He does not care. He says it's about the story, and that the story will drive millions unlocking a super big team building his idea. I said that's cool but why in the meantime you don't just go with one thing that is useful and works and then procedurally evolve to your vision while you interact with the user and discover more about their problems. The answer was a one-hour speech on Google leveling system. Maybe he is right. Time will tell.
The age old problem. Customer service isn't supposed to be mind numbingly unfathomable, and responding to customers should be easy. Unfortunately, unless higher management engages (is that Bezos or Gates? I've heard both) things will get lost in the mix.
Just read this - following a similar direction:
But my own farts smell good
Dogfooding was a virtuous cycle for user and service provider alike, because incentives were aligned.
Then growth - excuse me, metastasis - came along.
Thanks to metastasis - excuse me, enshittification - we've outgrown dogfooding. We'd used it as a kind of UX gyroscope, something that works to keep us balanced without too much institutional thought or effort. It made us more efficient at competing. Now that the biggest firms are the least threatened by competition, why would they subject themselves to the indignities of the User?
With a mass product we're all at the mercy of the bottom quantile or even vigintile. These are the people who need to hear about checking website, collecting basic information, etc.
Everyone who works with regular consumers, from doctors to shop assistants, knows this. And everyone who manages these first lines knows how much it costs. Hence the queue, the reminders, the redirection to self-service.
Also, this is how you can instantly establish your own competence and be treated seriously. Just go into the basic context and what you need straight from the hello, have documents at hand, even just loaded on your phone, etc.
There's usually also a second queue. Various "premium" offers (like higher inflows bank account) or just having someone's direct phone number.
>I recorded the call [^For training and monitoring purposes, of course]
Heh I just realized that the "may be recorded" bit could also be interpreted as them giving _you_ permission to record the call
And lying: "Please listen carefully as our menu items have changed". Only once did I get what everyone should use instead: "Please listen carefully to be sure you make the right selection". (Lying is also normalized by "I have read and agree to ....". Maybe better would be: "By clicking this box, you are agreeing to our needlessly lengthy terms, whether or not you have read them."
Yeah well economies of scale matters more than your sanity
In hindsight, it is obvious, but I couldn't make out what that synthesized voice was trying to say... She spells-out "approximately".
The author should consider smelling his own perfume, given the state and design of the site where he delivers his musings and gives us the moral lecture on not making the lives of one's customers miserable (without a hint of irony).
Ah, so the minutes long wait hearing answering machine bs is a universal experience. I thought it was a local thing and limited to ISPs, utilities, and financials... When I can choose between competing companies, having a direct line to a human for customer support is at the top of my list. I'm happy with either chat or phone, I just don't want to go through a bot first.
Whenever I have to call an IVR system for support it puts me in a blood rage 98 out of 100 times. This space is the ultimate dark pattern mine field.
My common interactions were with banks and telco companies. Absolute trash.
I'm pretty sure some systems allowed remembering the DTMF menu and press it while the voice recording played. But the recent systems I called did not allow this. It was like they intentionally made people wait to suffer the torture.
People call these systems as a last resort (At least I do). It should be illegal to make them so bad.
Also, I used to work with Telco side guys of these systems and they were very proud of these "capabilities".
Sorry for the rant. I had to vent it out.
Case in point, may every book the author picks up be designed like his website.
best HN headline of 2026
My farts always smell good to me.