This reminds me of a C.E.O. I know fairly well who had this insatiable need to impress the C.E.O. of a much larger and more well-known company in the same industry. (A competitor, I might add.) He sank the better part of $1M (and devote most of his already stretched R&D resources) into a new product line which served no purpose in his company’s product offering, and threatened to cannibalize an already struggling product line, all this in the hopes of selling it to this larger company as a private label line.

To his board, he explained that the larger company had asked him to create this line for them… Which they bought, hook, line and sinker. 18 months later, when the product line was finally ready to roll (and half of his product management and design staff had quit because of his endless tantrums), the larger company - which had not signed a contract with the C.E.O. in question or placed an order - decided that the product line wasn’t something they were interested in after all.

Brilliant.