10 years after "Growth Hacking" - by Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen revisits his 2014 "Growth Hacker is the VP of Marketing" post and argues that growth hacking's core tools proved useful only in some cases, while distribution metrics culture spread across the industry. He writes that A/B testing could not get startups to product/market fit, since they lack enough users for significant results, and that retention depends mainly on big product strategy choices such as category and customer segment. He also says the discipline was absorbed by other functions, with many marketers now called growth marketers and Coca-Cola appointing a Chief Growth Officer, and that the tactics became commoditized. Looking ahead, he expects novelty-driven sharing to return with AI tools and marketing to look more like personalized sales.