On an unimaginable scale

In my first proper product manager role, I learned to answer the “what problem are you solving?” question before building anything. I do it without even thinking now.

However, answering this question for Sawtooth at the company scale has been a challenge since day one.

The root of it always comes back to this statement: the dominant social and streaming services created a model in which only a handful of companies benefit from the creation and consumption of all music.

That’s not a classic “user story” problem for a dev team, and it’s a bit too hazy for most investors, except that the reason these companies are so dominant at our expense is, you guessed it, software.

And they used it to press their advantages on an unimaginable scale.

They now have top-down algorithmic control of our lives and livelihoods, spoonfeeding us our news and entertainment with just the right amount of agitation and comfort to keep us coming back for more.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Because we can use that same technology to create and sustain something that works for the rest of us.

That’s the bet we’re making. The other bet is that we’re not the only ones who want to live in a world free from their domination.