The Courage to Kill Great Ideas

There’s a moment every serious team recognizes.

You’re in a room with smart people. The whiteboard is full. The energy is high. Someone pitches an idea and it’s genuinely good—elegant, exciting, “users will love this.”

And then the trap snaps shut: because it’s good, it becomes untouchable.

This is how products get heavy. This is how roadmaps turn into museums. This is how teams ship “more” and feel “less.”

The truth is uncomfortable:

Most products don’t fail from a lack of ideas. They fail from a lack of courage.

Courage to cut. Courage to disappoint. Courage to kill something great so the product can become iconic.

Focus is not a personality trait. It’s a decision you repeat.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he didn’t teach people to brainstorm harder. He taught them to filter.

In a famous 1997 Apple WWDC session, he described focus as the painful act of saying “no” repeatedly—and admitted it makes people angry when you do it.

That line matters because it reframes “no” as a leadership cost, not a team failure.

If you’re building something meaningful, you will eventually face a choice between:

• pleasing internal stakeholders, or

• serving the user.

The user has to win.

The hidden cost of “great ideas”

A “great idea” is not just a feature.

It’s new screens, new settings, new edge cases, new QA, new support tickets, new tutorials, new confusion, and—worst of all—new cognitive load. Every addition taxes the user’s attention and trust.

In AI products, the cost is even higher: every new capability expands the model’s “behavior space.” If you don’t set boundaries, the experience becomes unpredictable. Users don’t trust unpredictable. They tolerate it for one week, then they leave.

So the question isn’t: Is it a good idea?
The question is: Is it worth the weight it adds?

Jobs had a method: list 10, keep 3

One of the most practical stories about Jobs isn’t poetic—it’s operational.

Walter Isaacson described how Jobs would push teams to propose the “10 things we should be doing next,” then slash the list down to three: we can only do three.

That’s not harshness for sport. That’s how you protect quality.

When you try to do ten things, you get ten average things.
When you do three, you have a chance at one that actually changes the game.

This is the courage most companies don’t have—because killing great ideas requires admitting something scary:

You can’t have everything.
And pretending you can is how you lose.

The iMac lesson: killing what’s “standard” to build what’s inevitable

In 1998, Apple shipped the iMac and removed the floppy disk drive—something that was still considered “normal” at the time. In a later reflection on that decision, Jobs brushed off the idea that it would be a major issue.

That’s a perfect example of the principle:

Simplicity isn’t polite.
Simplicity is decisive.

Apple didn’t win because it matched the market’s checklist. It won because it had the nerve to remove the parts of the checklist that no longer belonged in the future.

Killing great ideas works the same way.

Sometimes the thing you remove is exactly what makes the product feel modern.

The iWise rule: kill for the user, not for the ego

At iWise, we treat focus like a product system—something you design deliberately, then defend ruthlessly.

We don’t kill ideas because they’re bad.

We kill ideas because they:

• pull the product away from a single, clear outcome,

• increase friction faster than they create value,

• create exceptions that break the “simple mental model,”

• or add capability without adding trust.

A premium product is not a pile of features.
It’s a point of view.

A framework: how to kill the right great ideas

1) The One-Sentence Test (clarity)

If the product can’t be explained in one sentence without listing features, you’re already losing. Great ideas that require paragraphs usually belong in the trash—or in v3, after the core is undeniable.

2) The Surface Area Test (complexity)

Ask: What new surface area does this create? New screens, toggles, modes, prompts, onboarding steps, error states. If the surface area grows, your product becomes harder to learn, harder to trust, and harder to love.

3) The Two-Year Test (true cost)

A feature is never “done.” It’s maintained. It’s supported. It’s defended against weird edge cases forever. If you wouldn’t proudly pay the two-year cost, don’t ship it.

4) The Trust Test (especially for AI)

Does this idea make the system more predictable, or more magical? Predictability wins long-term. “Magic” without guardrails becomes inconsistency, and inconsistency kills retention.

5) The Taste Test (identity)

Some ideas don’t fit your identity. They’re “good,” but they’re not you. And when the product tries to be everyone, it becomes no one.

This is where companies with taste separate from companies with ambition.

The hardest part: killing ideas that everyone likes

The most dangerous ideas aren’t controversial.
They’re popular.

Because popular ideas create social pressure. Someone already imagined the launch post. Someone already promised it in a meeting. Someone already built a prototype. Now cutting it feels like betrayal.

But this is leadership:

You don’t protect feelings. You protect the product.

And paradoxically, when you cut correctly, morale improves. Because focus creates momentum. Momentum creates pride. Pride creates culture.

A practical exercise: “The Great Idea Graveyard”

Do this with your team in 25 minutes:

Write down your top 12 “great ideas.”
Then force a decision: only 3 can live.

For the 9 that die, write one line each:

• We are killing this because… (tie it to user outcome + complexity + trust)

Now something powerful happens: you create a culture where “no” is not rejection—it’s craft.

You’re not losing ideas.
You’re buying clarity.

Closing

Most teams chase innovation by adding.

The great ones innovate by removing.
Not because they’re minimalists—because they’re committed.

The courage to kill great ideas is the price of building something that lasts.

And the best part?

When you cut enough noise, the right product becomes obvious—almost inevitable.

FAQ

What does “kill your darlings” mean in product development?
It means removing even excellent ideas if they dilute focus, add complexity, or weaken the user experience.

How do you prioritize features on a product roadmap?
Use a strict filter: user outcome first, then surface area (complexity), then long-term maintenance cost, then trust (especially for AI).

Why is saying “no” important for innovation?
Because focus requires excluding distractions. Jobs described focus as repeatedly saying no—even when it upsets people.