You’re Not the Main Character. Your Customer Is

I remember walking into the headquarters of The New York Times for my first in-person interview. I felt the weight of its reputation. The Times is a cultural institution. And The Gray Lady had a big ego.

How was I supposed to succeed as Managing Director of Customer Experience, tasked with driving a “subscriber-first” culture, when the company itself was still putting the institution above individual customers?

The Moment of Realization

The good thing was that The Times knew it had a problem. It recognized that being a faceless institution wasn’t going to cut it in a digital world. We weren’t just shifting from physical newspapers on doorsteps to screens on phones...we were redefining what it meant to build loyalty in a world where everything was just a swipe away.

That’s where Our Path Forward came in, a strategy designed to drive sustainable growth by focusing on individual subscribers. But this wasn’t just about a revenue model shift. It was a mindset shift, from inside-out to outside-in. It's this document that paved the way for my role and a few others meant to develop be corporate muscles (capabilities) that could help them actuall put subscribers first.

One critical insight that came from our consumer research and ethnographic studies was about competition. The real competitor wasn’t other news organizations. It was people’s time and attention.

And that’s why The Times has been winning the digital subscription game. It learned how to take itself out of the center of the story and truly put readers first.

The Early Days of Corporate Ego

I was recently asked to deliver a workshop for a Series A-funded startup on how their team could be more "customer-centric." I wasn’t shocked that they were struggling, but I was surprised it was happening so early.

At this stage, when you’re still finding product-market fit, the only focus should be the customer. You haven’t proven anything yet. You’re still testing, listening, iterating. But ego sneaks in fast.

Then I remembered: companies don’t have egos, people do. And the average startup founder? Yeah, they probably have a big one.

And I get it, to do the early-stage startup thing, you have to be a little delusional. You have to believe your product is the best at solving a real need. That’s part of what fuels the work. But when that belief turns into blindness, you’ve got a problem.

Every company claims to be customer-centric. But what’s the opposite of that? Deep-seated company ego. And that kind of ego is dangerous. It kills innovation. It kills trust. It kills loyalty.

Understanding Corporate Ego

Corporate ego shows up when companies prioritize their own internal goals, metrics, and vision over what their customers actually need.

It sounds logical in the moment. But over time, that inward focus pushes customers away.

A company might launch a product that fits its roadmap, not the market. It might ignore complaints, chalking them up to a “vocal few.” Or it might resist change because admitting the need to evolve feels like failure.

Since moving into tech, I’ve seen this play out constantly. Tech companies pride themselves on being innovation engines but their egos often become the biggest blockers to meaningful customer focus.

Success in tech and SaaS isn’t about having the flashiest brand or the most sophisticated product. It’s about solving real problems for real people.

Signs Your Company Has a Corporate Ego Problem

Wondering if this is happening in your own company? Here’s how you know:

1. You ignore customer feedback. If complaints keep coming up and your response is “they just don’t get it,” you’ve got a problem.
2. You overcomplicate your product. Building what you think is cool instead of what your customers actually use.
3. You resist change. Holding onto legacy systems and processes because “this is how we’ve always done it.”
4. You measure success the wrong way. Internal KPIs look great, but customer satisfaction is disturbingly low and customers are churning.
5. You assume customers don’t know what they need. (Spoiler: they do. You just have to listen.)

Breaking the Cycle

Next time, we’ll talk about how to undo corporate ego. Because knowing it’s a problem is one thing. Fixing it is another.