The Farabi’s Guide to Building Products That Matter
On the Virtuous Product: A Treatise in the Manner of the Second Teacher
There are those who build as the beasts build: burrows for shelter, nothing more. And there are those who build as the philosopher contemplates the heavens, with purpose, with order, and with an eye fixed upon the Final Good.
Let it be understood, then, that the product, this artifact of our age which men summon forth from thought and craft and code, is no mere tool. It is, or ought to be, a vessel bearing its users toward al-Sa’āda: that true flourishing of the soul which exceeds mere convenience as the philosopher exceeds the artisan.
I. The Purpose of the Product
Every made thing possesses a Ghaya, a final cause toward which its nature strains, as the acorn strains toward the oak. A product built only to function, to save a click, to shave a second, to satisfy an idle want, has mistaken the accident for the essence. Such a product resembles a house with walls but no hearth: habitable, yet without the warmth that makes habitation worthy.
The virtuous product must ask, before all else: toward what good does this lead the one who uses it? Does it sharpen their reason, enlarge their capacity, draw them nearer to their own perfection? Or does it merely occupy their hours as fodder occupies the mouths of cattle? I have observed many products in this age that boast of “engagement” as their highest virtue, yet engagement without elevation is but a longer chain, gilded.
II. The Product Team as the Virtuous City
As the city requires a First Ruler who possesses, in fullest measure, the theoretical and practical wisdom lacking in others, so does the product require a founder whose vision, clear-sighted and undivided, orders the labor of many toward one end. But mark well: the First Ruler commands not by force, as the tyrant commands his slaves, but by the willing consent of citizens who comprehend the vision and freely choose to serve it.
Thus, the Product Manager is the wise minister, translating the Ruler’s vision into edicts the city can enact. The Designer is the artisan philosopher, giving sensible form to intelligible truth. The Engineer is the craftsman whose skilled hands raise the walls the Ruler has conceived.
When each citizen understands why the city is built, not merely what tasks he performs, the city flourishes as one body, each organ obedient not from fear but from shared purpose. Where this understanding is absent, you find not a virtuous city but a mere encampment of hirelings, dispersing at the first hardship.
III. User Research as the Pursuit of Knowledge
The philosopher does not build his cosmology upon zann, mere opinion, hearsay, the unexamined assumption, but upon yaqīn, certain knowledge won through patient observation and right reasoning. So too must the builder of products resist the temptation to construct upon the sand of assumption.
To presume one knows the user’s need without having observed him, questioned him, dwelt upon his true condition, is to build the city upon guesswork rather than upon wisdom.
User research, rightly practiced, is philosophy’s own method turned toward commerce: observe carefully, reason rigorously, doubt one’s own certainties, and only then commit stone upon stone. The founder who ships upon instinct alone gambles the city’s foundation upon a dream.
IV. Iteration as the Soul’s Perfection
The soul, as I have written elsewhere, does not arrive at actuality in a single motion; it ascends from the potential intellect, through the acquired intellect, toward that active intellect which is its perfection, and even this ascent is never wholly complete in mortal life. So too the product: it is never “finished,” but perpetually becoming.
Each sprint, each release, is a rung upon this ladder, the product moving from what it might be toward what it more truly is. The agile method, stripped of its modern jargon, is nothing other than this ancient truth: perfection is approached asymptotically, through disciplined repetition, never seized all at once. The team that believes version one is the final form has mistaken potentiality for actuality, and will build no further.
V. The Ignorant Cities of Failure
I have catalogued the flawed cities in their kinds, and their analogues plague the marketplace still. The Ignorant City, which knows not al-Sa’āda and pursues only bodily necessity, finds its echo in the growth-hacked product, one optimized for base compulsion, caring nothing for the user’s higher good.
The Immoral City, which knows the virtuous end yet chases wealth instead, resembles the startup that speaks of “mission” while its metrics reveal only appetite for revenue. The Changeable City, ruled by shifting egos rather than settled wisdom, mirrors the enterprise that pivots not from insight but from the vanity of its rulers, each new direction a monument to pride rather than truth.
These cities may prosper for a season, as weeds prosper before the frost. But they do not endure, for they are not built upon the Final Good.
Closing Reflection
What, then, would the truly virtuous product of this age resemble?
It would be one that regards the user not as a resource to be harvested but as a soul to be elevated, that strengthens reason rather than exploits its absence, that cultivates capability rather than dependency, that measures its worth not in hours captured but in flourishing enabled.
Such a product would be rare, as the virtuous city is rare among the many cities of men. Yet it is toward this rarity, not toward mere survival, nor mere profit, that every builder of true wisdom ought to strain, as the acorn strains, however long the season, toward the oak it was always meant to become.
Until next time, keep building smart, not just fast.
— Samet Özkale, AI for Product Power