The goal is to make a great product that makes money. Its not one or the other. Design by definition sits in the middle of business requirements and user needs. Otherwise its just art.
A great product will make money. Otherwise it wasn't a great product. You can make money without a great product, but you can't have a great product that doesn't make money. Therefore design comes first, business requirements comes second, otherwise your offerings are mediocre to bad. Like my Nexus 5.
There's this trend amongst big companies these days, particularly Google and Amazon, to come up with products that don't solve any of their customer's problems. The way these products happen is business requirements gain priority over design ideals. Someone looking at a spreadsheet looking for places to jam a lever in is choosing product direction.
This seems like a narrow definition. A product can be great in the sense of solving an important problem brilliantly but be ahead of its time or not well marketed or not economical to produce.
To me, solving a problem really well is what makes a product great. Making money is certainly related, but it's a distinct challenge.
There's this trend amongst big companies these days, particularly Google and Amazon, to come up with products that don't solve any of their customer's problems. The way these products happen is business requirements gain priority over design ideals. Someone looking at a spreadsheet looking for places to jam a lever in is choosing product direction.