Is "continuous discovery" really needed? Maybe I'm naive, but can't a product - or a business - just be "done"? Nothing more to do but be a great product or service to someone. With happy, well-paid employees. A good reputation and a great place to work.

At $dayjob I often feel as though upper management are just "playing business" the way a group of school children would. Going through motions with no real care for the outcome. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Is it almost holiday time yet? Gee, we might not hit budget this year. That's ok. Next year we'll add 20% and see what happens. Shall we go on a hiring spree? Nah, let's shut down building C and move those people into production or marketing. Half will quit on their own. And so on.

Maybe I just don't see the point of the hamster wheel of features.

I think you are naive, as I believe it’s very rare that a business that considers itself “done” stay in business for a long time. And I am not just saying software business, but any business. Even family restaurants that last decades adapt with new “features”. New dishes, new management software, new payment systems.

For software business this is much more pronounced (as they often don’t have such defendable features as, e.g restaurants like “location”).

I have a strong conviction that a software business that stops discovering new features will cease to exist in tops 5 years. You can try and be bad at it and fail anyway. But if you stop trying you don’t even have a chance.