Clayton Christensen knew this all too well and calls this sustained innovation. In other words, to just make incremental improvements to a product to maintain a position in a market.
What this article is pointing out is a classic innovator's dilemma, in which the product manager role is unable to live up to the necessity to innovate and follow these great ideas of great PMs.
Overall a great article because it calls out the 10 dysfunctions of product management as told in books like "Build what matters". Especially this thought:
> Anyone with even a speckle of greatness eventually leaves. They either get pushed out by the mediocre dictator, or they leave on their own terms, as the environment has become intolerable to them.
The irony from my experience is that there are great people who want to do great things. They want a great PM and they want to follow a compelling vision. The modern day challenge is what companies are starting to identify... Vogons. "not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous". Also known as middle management.