S 02 | Ep 11 Owning the Problem : Christopher Lochhead on Why the Best Product Doesn ’ t Win Christopher Lochhead is a three - time public company CMO , bestselling author of Play Bigger and Niche Down , and the godfather of category design . His latest book , The Existing Market Trap , argues that roughly 13 trillion dollars of AI investment is headed for destruction because founders keep chasing existing demand instead of designing entirely new categories . In this episode , Christopher breaks down the core discipline of category design , starting with the idea that markets are not the weather . They are not things that happen to you . They are things you build . He explains why the greatest competitive advantage any company can have is owning the problem , not the product , and why the moment you position yourself as a better version of something that already exists , you have already lost . He traces how this played out at companies like Zoom , Netflix , and SuccessFactors , and where it went wrong for others who fell into the horizontal tool trap or the 2 . 0 trap .