The Blind Spot in Dog-Fooding: Lessons from Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn

It’s a rare example of a founder confidently using complementary products, rather than just their own.

In contrast, Zuckerberg doesn’t publicly use Twitter. He’s a Threads super-user

This behavior reflects a broader pattern: founders “dog-food” their products and encourage employees to do the same. There’s value in this commitment

But sometimes, the writing is on the wall.

No amount of dog-fooding changed the fact that:

• Sales reps at Salesforce preferred Slack to Chatter
• Amazonians used the iPhone, not Fire Phone
• Googlers used Twitter, not Google+
• Yahoo! engineers searched on Google

These moments force a choice: adapt or double down.

The best adapt quickly and decisively:

• Benioff adapted, he paid big $$$ for Slack
• Bezos shelved Fire Phone within a year

The rest let inertia carry them:

• Google ran Google+ for 8 years before shelving it
• Yahoo! bled money on search until it finally partnered with Bing.

The lesson?

Have the self-awareness of Reid Hoffman to understand your product’s purpose. If not, be decisive like Benioff or Bezos. Else, be ready to bleed money.