Why half of product managers are in trouble | Nikhyl Singhal (Meta, Google)

The skills that used to be really valued in product managers are changing substantially.

It's going to be chaos. Our industry is very much in stress. Nothing's constant.

Everyone's in a state of alert. If you

talk to product leaders 3 years ago, their day was largely moving information. The information mover is

information. The information mover is essentially going to become a dinosaur.

I just did this report on the job market. Interestingly, we have the most

market. Interestingly, we have the most open PM roles globally in three plus years.

This is a complete renaissance for the product industry, but it comes with a lot of strings attached. In the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see massive

shedding of staffs and then massive rehiring. You might see a company shed

rehiring. You might see a company shed 30,000 and hire 8,000, but the 8,000 people are going to all be AI first. The

builders are going to have the time of their lives, but if you don't love building stuff, you're in trouble.

What are some things that people should do to thrive in this future that is emerging?

You have to find ability to increase pace. You got to find that reserve. The

pace. You got to find that reserve. The

next 2 years requires a lot of fire in the belly.

Today my guest is Nikuel Singal. Nikuel

is, in my opinion, right now the number one best source of career advice for product managers and for tech people in general. He was a longtime exec at Meta

general. He was a longtime exec at Meta and at Google, CPO at Credit Karma. He's

also four-time founder, and he leads the best community out there for heads of product and chief product officers called the Skip community. He also has a larger community for tech professionals called the Skip Coach. And through these

communities and his 30 years of building consumer products at scale and also his podcast which I've recently partnered with, he is constantly gathering and meeting with and speaking with top

product leaders around the world about what's happening and what's changing in the lives of product managers and tech workers in general. And the answer is a lot. This is an episode that every

lot. This is an episode that every single product person needs to listen to. and you won't find a more real talk

to. and you won't find a more real talk and actionable overview of what is going on and where things are heading in your career and also what you should be doing

about it right now. Seriously, do not miss this conversation. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennisproduct.com for an incredible set of deals available exclusively to

Lenny's newsletter subscribers. With

that, I bring you Nuel Singal.

Nikuel, thank you so much for being here and welcome back to the podcast.

Yeah, thank you, Lenny. I appreciate uh version two. Uh and all my notes were

version two. Uh and all my notes were like Lenny version two. So, I'm quite excited about uh being uh back on the show. You've done so well since the last

show. You've done so well since the last time that I've visited and uh appreciate the opportunity to to to share with you uh my current thing.

Yeah. So, you were actually one of the launch episodes, the first 2030 guests that I had on the podcast. This was two or three years ago, something like that.

And a lot has changed in the world of product management since then. And we're

going to be basically spending this entire episode talking about what is changing in the role and the career of a product manager. And what I especially

product manager. And what I especially love about you talking to you and hearing your insights is you don't sugarcoat what's going on. You're very

real about like here's what you need to know about what is going on. So we're

going to be talking about the good and the bad and just like a lot of advice for product managers in particular. to

kick things off, give us just kind of the big picture view into what is changing for product managers, the good and then maybe the the scary stuff.

Yeah, it' be a lot shorter of an episode if we just talked about what didn't change.

Wow.

I think that says a lot.

Maybe I'll start with this. I think that when we first chat chatted, it was like in maybe the the end of COVID, I think the ZERP era, as we called it, zero

interest, uh, you know, kind of, um, free money from from investors was just kind of cresting. Uh, we talked about

how IC's are now more in demand. We

talked about how these first round of layoffs are existing, that exgrowth companies are going to be a struggle.

But if you really talk to product leaders that were kind of in that mode maybe three three years ago, they were

they weren't very happy. And what I mean by that is their day was largely a day of moving information from one to

another. Let me frame

another. Let me frame the way that my team is presenting the information to my boss so that that

person can frame it to their boss's boss. And generally the function had

boss. And generally the function had become extremely focused on responsibility without authority. And so

that is the greatest form of workplace stress. Now we don't talk about that. We

stress. Now we don't talk about that. We

talk about all the stresses that we have today. Boy, AI is going to replace our

today. Boy, AI is going to replace our function, etc., etc. But, but the honest truth is, if you think back, if you've been in product for a handful of years, that was a tough time. Um, now people

were being paid well. Layoffs were just starting. There were the industry was

starting. There were the industry was huge. It was the biggest it's ever been.

huge. It was the biggest it's ever been.

There were more product managers, more CPOS than ever had existed in history.

Um, what's changed is people are having fun again, particularly product folks, because they're able to build. They

don't have to rely on as many people to have impact. There's much more of a

have impact. There's much more of a direct connection to their ideas and their ability to test and and and connect their product instincts to their

customers. And so in many ways, this is

customers. And so in many ways, this is a a complete renaissance for the product industry. Uh for a lot of the strongest

industry. Uh for a lot of the strongest builders in the group that I'm associated with, compensation is an all-time high. They have more offers

all-time high. They have more offers than they've ever seen. They see their next job maybe being a founder, maybe being a CEO, maybe being in another function other than product, but being

in the sea level. They're feeling like there's more opportunities than ever before. So that's kind of the good. Uh I

before. So that's kind of the good. Uh I

would say in all honesty it comes with a lot of strings attached. I think that it starts with just being exhausted.

I have I've never seen a a industry that's more tired than they are now. Um

I mean I think we were tired during co but for different reasons. Now I think uh nothing's constant. There's, you

know, once you figure out how to do your job, in the past you would be fine for a decade until you became a manager and then you would be fine until you became

an executive. Now, if you don't stay up

an executive. Now, if you don't stay up and the next three months, they'll be like, "Oh, you're you're doing that thing that we we stopped doing that three months ago. We don't do that anymore. Oh, you know, PRDS, well, you

anymore. Oh, you know, PRDS, well, you know, that's not even a pro. You know,

everything feels like everyone's in a state of alert." And I think that in addition now you're hearing right tens of thousands of people are being shed by

larger employers that are also hiring and paying triple wages. So like that's like mindboggling. But you know

like mindboggling. But you know depending on your perspective you might be on one side or the other. And I think that particularly a lot of the midcareer

people, people that are like, let's call it in their 30s, you know, life plays this cruel trick on you where you end up

having your best most energetic years of your career, your power years of career, because you finally have figured out what you're doing. But at the same time,

you may be settling down. You may have kids. Your parents are aging and you for

kids. Your parents are aging and you for the first time have those aches and pains in your body. You have to think about diet. You can't eat cookies every

about diet. You can't eat cookies every day. You have to exercise. And so

day. You have to exercise. And so

between your health, the family and friends that you hardly ever see, your parents which are now worrying uh because you have to build a different relationship with them. They're becoming

dependent. your actual dependence which your kids and then oh by the way your work which is you know will take whatever time you have but it also changes all the time that generation is

insanely stressed historically and now they're like hey stay up you know what's the latest in cloud code they changed it this morning I it's it's dizzying so I think there's joy but there's fatigue in

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So you talk to I don't know hundreds of product leaders regularly run these communities for CPOS and senior product leaders. I guess on balance are people

leaders. I guess on balance are people doing would you say better than the last than like two three years ago or is it just like oh man everyone's like like burning out and in big trouble. I think

that how people would describe it and how I describe it is slightly different.

I tend to be more around like when people are doing better I think they have more choice and they're longterm going to be happier from that perspective. I think people that are at

perspective. I think people that are at the top of their game are doing much better for the reasons I mentioned.

They're just more interested in their jobs. I think that they're more

jobs. I think that they're more stressed, but I think they're stressed because they wish they had more time to feed the LLM at night, which is a different form

of stress than the stress that they experienced in the past, which is I don't know if my point or my team is going to get through the the malaise of decisioning that exists here. So, I

think that people are doing better.

However, I think our industry is very much in stress. I think that on average, people even if they're doing well, they feel more stressed because they worry

they're either not keeping up or they worry that this industry is going to change and it's going to essentially they'll be roadkill along that way. And

so that has a lot to do with, you know, people are not, you know, generally that arrogant and they don't always believe that everything is going to work itself out. And there's a lot of evidence that

out. And there's a lot of evidence that things are changing. And so change is hard on humans. And so I think that there's a combination of both, but I think the best people tend to be feeling great right now.

We're going to talk about of the people that are doing best, what are they doing differently, but before we get there, let's think about the future of where things are heading. You talked about a bunch of the things that are have

already changed and how different the world of product management is. What do

you think will change further in the next couple years to give people a sense of where things are heading? Yeah, I I had this uh this meetup uh last Thursday and it was a fun meetup. You know, I

have a group of about 125 heads of products and we tend to gather once a month in San Francisco and during this meetup, you know, we took an approach where lots of people were building

things for their own companies or on their own to help themselves with productivity. And so we said, hey, why

productivity. And so we said, hey, why don't we do a showand tell? why don't we just have you if you're ahead of product just show kind of things that are interesting that are worth worth uh

explaining and so we had a startup go up and and show what they're doing and then we had some midsize companies and some late stage companies and you know what it was a few things that were really

palpable um one was there was so much joy in the audience that people were like oh I've been building this thing and let me show

you and everyone had their laptop and they were like oneupping each other and they were like your chief of staff does that, my chief of staff does this thing.

So that would sort of builds on my point that people are having fun being hands-on. But the second thing is that

hands-on. But the second thing is that the way they talk about how product decisions are made, the way they talked about how prioritization is determined, the way they talked about how

information moves within the company looked like a completely foreign animal from anything that I had experienced when I was working, you know, a few

years back. And I got up on stage and I

years back. And I got up on stage and I said, you know, if you think about how we work right now and how you folks are all talking about, you know, using

agents in your uh enterprise, how you're using uh chief of staff apps to essentially drive more productivity, how all of you are essentially spending all

your time just focusing on judgment and you're spending all your time taking anything that can be obsoleted and writing software around it. like none of that was even in the language, even in

the vernacular 12 months ago.

So now what is it going to look like in 12 months? And everyone kind of had a

12 months? And everyone kind of had a pause and they're like, "Yeah, this was sort of unossible to anticipate what this conversation would look like 12 months ago." It's

pretty hard to understand where things are going. But but I would say I think

are going. But but I would say I think maybe I'll answer your question around where things are going in the next couple years based on kind of how I think companies are going to change and

how people are going to change. So I

think on the company's side I think that and then maybe I'll slant it more towards product for a second. So product

leaders will increasingly get paid and be asked to drive judgment and then be the tip of the spear on trying to essentially obsolete everything else

through software, through AI, through agents. And this is partly why there's a

agents. And this is partly why there's a lot of excitement because just to be very honest with you and you were a PM and I was a PM, most of the stuff that

you didn't like doing are the things that AI is really taking a real uh crack at. And so, um, I think that's super

at. And so, um, I think that's super interesting. Uh, I think that there's a

interesting. Uh, I think that there's a ton of that change that's going to happen. Some companies are are doing it

happen. Some companies are are doing it now. Some companies will do it but

now. Some companies will do it but within two years I think most of these companies will obsolete all the mechanical parts of building product. I

think that there will be 10 to 100 times more uh changes that will be presented to products than ever before because now

there the cost of testing something the cost of changing is going to be much much lower. And so when things are

much lower. And so when things are changing that rapidly, that judgment piece becomes like pretty much paramount.

Just to make sure we understand, when you say judgment, what do you what should people be thinking of when you when you talk about judgment?

I think that it's sort of evaluating whether the thing that we're changing is a good or bad thing.

I think that it's also evaluating whether, you know, we should change the product in one way versus another. You

can't build a hundred custom versions of the same product. It doesn't it affects your brand. it affects the

your brand. it affects the maintainability etc. So when customers are asking for things, when you're trying to think through how do you build something that's sustainable, differentiated, that's judgment and and

evaluating whether it's successfully met that criteria, whether it's worth building and worth releasing. It's

almost like the system skill that's existed from the beginning of the internet. It's, you know, hey, it's not

internet. It's, you know, hey, it's not about the feature, it's around the system that we're putting together, the platform if you will, that's, you know, kind of enabling capability, right? So

that's the the judgment of boy, there's all these changes coming in. They're

going to happen more frequently. You

know, as an aside, because of all these changes, I think that in two years, I think there won't be any more bad software. I mean, this is maybe more of

software. I mean, this is maybe more of a wish and a dream than a prediction, but I think that if you count in the week in your given week, how much bad

software you uh come back with, right?

You know, I have a house and it has like 15 different apps that run to control everything from the shades to the air conditioner to the, you know, garage

door. And almost every one of those apps

door. And almost every one of those apps are a horrid. They don't work particularly well. They never get moni

particularly well. They never get moni things break. No one ever checks it.

things break. No one ever checks it.

Like all that stuff's going to get fixed because someone's going to basically sit down and tell Claude to fix it and it's just going to fix it. And it's going to fix it. it's going to be more secure,

fix it. it's going to be more secure, etc. So, I think that that's changing and so people will have a lot less tolerance for for bad software.

Along those lines, just real quick at a quick aside to your side, uh the prompt I constantly find myself using with codeex and claude is just how can we make the product experience better? How

can we make this better? And you just ask that and it's like here's 10 ways we can make it better. And so he's like, wow, these are really good ideas. And

then cool, do do the first seven.

Exactly. There's going to be like some super skill that's going to run against every piece of software that's in in the app store and it's going to basically go in and it's going to fix them all and then they're going to get released.

They're going to be like, "Oh, that this is like just a significantly more consistent, better, less buggy experience and more maintainable." And

so that's why there's a lot of optimism, right? Because there's these changes can

right? Because there's these changes can be done pretty automatically.

Yeah. Just like it's easy to just to kind of finish that loop real quick.

Like so many of these apps are built by engineers that are not the best engineers. They're engineers that, you

engineers. They're engineers that, you know, like uh companies hired that don't really care about their software.

They're just like this is just like a side thing building this thing that we have just app. We just need to build an app. Let's find someone to build it.

app. Let's find someone to build it.

They're not like product first companies. And now all of these

companies. And now all of these companies have access to the most skilled software engineer, cloud code, a codeex, and all these other tools. So I

I I totally see what you're saying like everyone has the best engineers available now and it's just an English to ask them to build a better thing or build a better app. So that's a really interesting point. It still boggles my

interesting point. It still boggles my mind. You know, everyone's like, "Oh,

mind. You know, everyone's like, "Oh, what's the cutting edge and all that?" I

think there's still, I don't know if this is true even today, but very recently there were more lines of cobalt than I think any other language uh out

there. And mainframe sales continued to

there. And mainframe sales continued to do pretty well. And they're unusually large line item for companies like IBM.

And part of the reason why these systems, like, you know, I I think I spent an hour and a half trying to get my Mileage Plus account on United to

work correctly with my daughter's phone and all this other stuff. Partly because

these systems are so uh complicated, but they're built in mainframes, right? And

a lot of the engineers, and this is going to sound kind of morbid, but you know, I think it's true, is a lot a lot of the engineers are are dead. like they

literally are passed away. They were

written, you know, 10 20 years ago and and like going in and touching that code is, you know, the probably the last thing anyone wants to do so nobody goes

in there, you know, it's all downside.

Now we can change that. So I'm like very excited about what it means to go in and improve things that people take for granted, right? That that's a big one

granted, right? That that's a big one that that's a bit of an aside. I think

that um the other thing that I think it's worth kind of signaling is I think that the way we we the skills that you

need to be effective in today's world is a uh is an acceleration of what we were talking about last episode. We were

talking about IC's. We were talking about hands-on. We're talking about

about hands-on. We're talking about opinion. Even back then before you know

opinion. Even back then before you know Claude and Chapen GBT and others kind of came came out. Uh, I think what we're

now seeing is companies are looking very very um carefully at their staffing and they're asking themselves one, do we

need this many people? Did we overhire?

And part of the reason is they're looking, hey, maybe we doubled our staff in the last five years. Lots of

companies that are public have done that. Did we get twice as much for them?

that. Did we get twice as much for them?

You know, it was funny when I was at Google, um, now over 10, 15 years ago.

We used to ask ourselves, you know, I was on an ancillary team. I wasn't in the search or the ads team. We used to ask ourselves like, how many people are really needed for Google to hit their

numbers and, you know, there were like at the time 20, 30, 40,000 people. And,

you know, if you ask someone who wasn't in tech, you're like, ah, probably like 90% of those folks obviously. And you

know the answer is probably closer to like 9%. You know probably you need like

like 9%. You know probably you need like 500 people to keep the lights on and to build that business. You don't need 25 30 40,000 people. So there's a huge

amount of overhead where companies hire not just because they want to, you know, have bureaucrats because they want to expand, they want to try new things. But

I think that there's a judgment day that's come back where companies are like, look, we aren't getting as much for the staff that we grew in the last 5 years. And this AI thing requires a

years. And this AI thing requires a totally different skill set. The

combination is going to mean this year, I predict in the next 12 to 24 months, we're going to see massive shedding of

staffs and then massive rehiring. Um,

but the re you might see a company shed 30,000 and hire 8,000. But the 8,000 people they're going to hire are going to all be AI first. and the 30,000

they're going to let go of are going to be in combination of we didn't get as much for those folks that we needed and we wanted to sort of set the we want to set the uh the destination differently

with a much lighter uh payload and that's that's dark that's going to make this uh year and the next two year you know year going to be pretty pretty challenging so I'll transition a little

bit to my thoughts on people but I'll pause for a second to see if this resonates with you that's uh scary to We're going to talk about what folks

listening can do to be in to do do their best to be in that second bucket of being rehired and and kept because there's a lot you can do and there's a lot of people that know they need to change and adjust and they're not doing

anything and we want to talk about maybe some of the blockers there. One thing

I'll note is I I should have mentioned this earlier. I just did this uh report

this earlier. I just did this uh report on job the job market and interestingly as of today at least we have the most

open PM roles globally at tech companies uh in three plus years. The last time it was this high was kind of during COVID basically. So there's some good news

basically. So there's some good news there at least for the PM world. I don't

know.

Did that surprise you Lenny?

Yeah it did because there's always this sense that you know why do we need PMs?

What's the point? We have AI just build stuff and like my sense I've always been saying this I feel like the PM skill is the most important valuable skill of all the skills and I know every role thinks

this about their role. It's like no design we sign more than anything now like but but I feel like what you said where it's the deciding what to build deciding if this is good and great and

ready and prioritizing I feel like that's what remains. So uh so to me it makes sense. report came out in a

makes sense. report came out in a fortuitous time because it was right before I was preparing to kind of come on this show and the the three points I was going to make is, you know, builders

are going to have the time of their lives. Comp's actually up and the Bay

lives. Comp's actually up and the Bay Area is, you know, essentially back in in uh in in favor and I think those

three things came very much loud and clear in your report. Um and I think your the question around hey why are product managers doing so well? Why are

there so many jobs when in reality a lot of product people that all of us know are struggling to find a role or we're hearing about these layoffs. I think it depends on how you define what a product manager is. And I think that for the

manager is. And I think that for the first time I think that we did have a dramatic shift in what's defined. We

three years ago talked about hey product managers there's lots of arc types. Some

arc types are actually more in favor.

This was the IC conversation, the builder conversation. Now what we're

builder conversation. Now what we're essentially saying is the the the information mover is essentially going to become a dinosaur. And I think about

half of the product people that were kind of that grew into the industry, you know, have that skill and superpower.

And then there were a set of people who got into product because they like to build stuff you know and you know folks like yourself who were founder who that was sort of the motivation into joining

kind of the industry and then they found themselves into this thing called product management. Those folks are

product management. Those folks are builders you know and those people are the ones that are being hired by your survey. I think those product managers,

survey. I think those product managers, everybody wants a builder. And I think that interestingly, lots of engineers are builders, lots of designers are

builders, lots of uh marketing folks are builders, and I think builders wanted is going to be the big tagline for the next

couple of years. And it is so fun to build. I I I'll bet you and this is a

build. I I I'll bet you and this is a prediction that if you had to choose between preparing a podcast and sitting in codeex or sitting in cloud code and

like working on your laptop, you would prefer the ladder.

It is so fun. Yeah. Just like progress.

You just make so much fun. It's like

look at this thing go. It's getting

better. It's getting better.

I mean when I was a PM I used to take a break and go ch and go change the light bulbs in the house. And the reason why I

would change the light bulbs is that light bulb was broken, but then I replaced it and the light came on and

man was that satisfying because in a product job there is very few days of satisfaction because you don't really have the

ability to see something broken that gets fixed. It's just part of the

gets fixed. It's just part of the challenge in having responsibility without authority. until now. Now you

without authority. until now. Now you

can participate in the joy. You can

create a design. You don't have to wait for the designer and convince the designer to go and actually work through this or to put your stuff on a backlog.

You don't have to do that. And so I think that the builders are going to have the time of their lives and I think they're going to be very focused on

judgment. I think that they're going to

judgment. I think that they're going to invade other functions. I think there's going to be, you know, when when I started the group five years ago, we had

for the first two to three years until we got to about 60 70 people in this community of of head of products, we had one founder.

In the last 12 months, as we've gone to about 125, we have 14 founders.

14 people essentially have decided that their next job was not to take another product executive role but to founding

CEO is now open to us. I I have one person very senior person on uh in in my group who interviewed for a CHRO position

because they wanted a product manager background for the CHRO position. What

is the what is the HRO?

That's the chief HR person in the company, right? So, you would never

company, right? So, you would never think that an HR person would be a former product manager, but now forward-leaning companies are starting

to say, "Hey, we need someone who can bring this obsolescence skill, this judgment skill, this empowerment skill, this builder skill to the function." In

fact, the function might be easier to learn than the other parts of the job.

And you know we're seeing that trend that product builders are going to have you know both a broader range of opportunities up and down the stack and

it won't be product managers and engineers can become product leaders and product builders and and all of this blurring of the lines is going to take place. I think that unfortunately the

place. I think that unfortunately the flip side has to be mentioned. I think

that non-builders and I think that anyone who sort of sees themselves as not loving like sitting down and building something and there may be reasons why and we'll get into

why you may not be in a position to to find the time let's say but if you're not a builder if you're like look my skill was never to I'm not really into tech like people say this all the time

I'm not really into tech I I just really found it to be a lucrative job it's a you know it's a role where my ability to communicate my ability to move

information was, you know, where I ended up enjoying it. I love team building, you know, those kinds of nodes, which by the way, I love all those things. Um,

but if you don't love building stuff, you're in trouble. And, and I mentioned about half the people are in that camp.

So, we're going to have that challenge where they're going to have to find perhaps leave the tech industry. they

might have to, you know, it might be that they um, you know, want to go build a a new business outside of tech, but use some of these AI tools or maybe they

they want to find a job completely foreign to tech. But I think that this non-builder piece is a is sort of a mirror image of the builder growth that story that we're seeing.

There's so many directions we can go here. One thing I want to throw out,

here. One thing I want to throw out, it's kind of a hot take and this came from a chat I just had with Amold the head of growth growth at Anthropic. So

he's at a growth, he's a PM and he had this really interesting point that as engineers can do so much more, PMs are getting squeezed because they have to stay on top of so many things, so many

features, so many ideas, so much doc, so many things being sent at them. And

there's this push for PMs at companies to shipyards build stuff themselves. And

what we took away from that chat is like the leverage that PMs often have is is a lot higher not spending time coding and shipping but instead just like staying on top of all this stuff. And he's like

we need more PMs now. There's so much for PMs to do because engineers are so fast. So there's still need for like

fast. So there's still need for like prototyping to explore ideas and ideulate and get feedback and align. But

he had an interesting take that like I don't want to be like it's better I don't spend time shipping stuff. It's

better I do higher leverage work as a PM. It depends what he means by shipping

PM. It depends what he means by shipping stuff because I think that if you have an engineering team of 50 people building things for your customers and

you're like, "Hey, I want to be the 50 first because that's how I get leverage." I'm like, "It's kind of a

leverage." I'm like, "It's kind of a cheap knockoff of an engineer." If on the other hand, the thing that you're building is ways to stay on top of what

the 50 people are are doing when in the past that was building tickets and backlogs and all of the things that we used to do to figure out organizations,

manage standups, you know, that's the information overload that's happening.

What we saw when the CPO's got together is all of the things they're building are ways to drive efficiency out of their product organizations. They're

inside the building kind of development efforts. And I'm not sure that for the

efforts. And I'm not sure that for the next five years we'll continue to build software that way, but I think in the next two years people are going to

change the product operating system that they're working on. And we're already seeing companies that like stand up and they say, "Hey, we've fully automated the way we do product reviews. We fully

automated the way we do product standup." So to his point, look, if

standup." So to his point, look, if there's 15 10 times the amount of stuff happening, we need judgment to determine whether it's good. These are good or bad

changes. And right now, if it's manual,

changes. And right now, if it's manual, we're cooked. So it's a combination of

we're cooked. So it's a combination of hiring good product builders with judgment and then hiring increasingly folks whose entire job is to kind of

build the internal tools necessary to improve the decisioning but it's not through hiring of humans and building management ethos which is what it used to be in Zerp. It's actually through

technology, but it's a totally different way of building software. And that's

what gets people excited because they're like, "Wow, if I do this, I don't have to ever do a status report." I mean, that was a comment that was made. I hate

doing status reports. So now I just wrote something and my boss is happier because they get more in detail. And at

that to me is incredibly exciting, but it is a different direction of what you're trying to deliver than something that goes out the door.

That is such a good distinction and and makes all the sense. Basically, it's uh make yourself scale through software as much as possible. There's a big opportunity and it's fun. It's like

you're building your own thing.

That's right. That's right. I think a few other things that I would just note around how things are going to change the next couple years. I think that adults are still going to be needed. I

think companies are going to grow.

They're going to grow quickly. I think

those that are driving some of these initiatives are are classic founders.

And AI is great at supplementing a lot of things. But I think judgment comes in

of things. But I think judgment comes in the form of uh a combination of expertise and wisdom. And so I think that increasingly I hear from mind

groups that hey I'm attractive to this company because I have wisdom but I stay hands-on. I have credibility with the

hands-on. I have credibility with the founder. So I can have a conversation

founder. So I can have a conversation with that individual in his or her language but I have weight to my thinking. I have seen the movie. I have

thinking. I have seen the movie. I have

experience that actually would help them as they take this turn. So adults are still going to be important. I think

pace will continue to go up partly because people will want to feed the beast the the sort of LLMs that are running at night. And I think partly because there's just such an opportunity

to keep moving so much faster. Uh and I think that's going to be dizzying and I'm not excited about what that causes for burnout. Um sadly I think that

for burnout. Um sadly I think that geography and and actually diversity is going to take a step back. I think that

we were very good about driving more bre as we grew the industry. we started

looking at people who were from different backgrounds to populate it including different locations. But I

think that because the AI wave is so heavily and you know coming from the the the the Bay Area and because companies are hiring fewer folks, they're hiring

people that look and act like themselves. So age, gender, I think uh

themselves. So age, gender, I think uh you know ethnic uh backgrounds, all of those are taking a hit and I

think that we will have stepped back quite a number of years in the diversity of what we do. And so I worry um I mean this is my personal worry but I worry

about that um probably more now than I did in the last 5 years um because I think it's an underbelly of what we're we're seeing and I don't think that anyone's intentionally doing anything

but I think when pace is so high the fact is that you know women are having kids and in those power years and and they just don't have the time uh to a

lot to spending their nights and weekends and cloud code. And so that's an impact and you know we don't talk about it as an industry but it's absolutely true. Um and then the last

absolutely true. Um and then the last thing I would just say and maybe this is this goes into some of the the advice as well is I think that the one of the most

surprising shifts we're seeing is you know your brands don't matter as much as how modern you are in your ability to deliver product.

In in the past, I think for the last 10 years, it's like, have you seen the movie before? I remember even in this

movie before? I remember even in this last podcast episode we did, Lenny, we talked about, hey, brands matter. You

really need to make sure that they're personal brands.

Yeah, personal brands. Hey, I've worked for this company. They've delivered

products. They've been at scale. So then

people are like, "Oh, that person certainly knows what they're doing, right?" and and you know it's like well

right?" and and you know it's like well tell me about all the different experiences you've had but now if every way of building software and how we

deliver product is completely alien to how it was in the last you know 10 years how you delivered in that sort of

version one is going to be less and less relevant so lots and lots of feedback from that I'm hearing from interviews is like put you in a scenario what tool

tools do you use? What's your judgment?

How do you think? It's not about five years ago you shipped this thing. What

was your thinking that went into it? And

so how modern you are now becomes the career advice. Not did you pick up the

career advice. Not did you pick up the established brands? Because what if the

established brands? Because what if the established brands is very much working in a way that's not current? You

worked there for six years, you come out and it feels like you're in a totally different world, right? That's why I think the next two years and these changes are so profound and and quite frank frankly confusing to people.

That is such an interesting insight that the logo like it used to be fancy to have all these logos on your resume and now you're saying sometimes that may hurt you because that company's not seen as a very AI forward company. And second

of all, people are looking for just like what have you actually done? Are you

actually aware what's going on?

Well, I was just going to say some of those biggest brands, it's hard to even talk about what you've done. You know,

it's like, you know, if you're working at Meta and you spent two years and I managed to make this, you know, piece of this algorithm, you know, go a little faster and by the way, it had a huge impact. And, you know, frankly, it was

impact. And, you know, frankly, it was incredibly hard to navigate the hallways and to make that decision and to find incrementality. I mean, as someone who

incrementality. I mean, as someone who has worked there, I understand and respect that and that is a promotable, you know, achievement, but it just falls very flat on a conversation where

someone's like living in the future and product is now totally different, right?

That distinction is the is the thing that I want to just call out that hey that's happening every day right now.

So what you're saying there which is a really powerful point is that the skills that used to be really valued in product managers are changing pretty substantially.

Yeah. And in fact maybe almost flipped upside down in terms of importance. You

know, in some ways, we start our careers as builders, many of us, and then we get taught that leverage, scale, organizing,

streamline, empowering, enabling. Don't

do the build yourself. Get others to do it. Stop working on the car, work on the

it. Stop working on the car, work on the factory. Right? That's that's the that

factory. Right? That's that's the that is the maturation of our industry. And

then you find out that well what if it turns out the scale can be done very differently and all we care about is your opinion and what you build. That's

very jarring and that's what we're living through right now.

So let's follow the thread of specific advice to PMs right now whether they're mid-career senior getting started. What

are some specific things that you think people should do to do well in this emerging future?

Change is really hard for us. And I

think as humans, we're not really designed to change very easily. Like if

you think about it, you know, I was thinking you, you know, about why is it hard for us to change when in some ways change can lead us to much better

outcomes. You know, we're almost like

outcomes. You know, we're almost like told to change less as we grow older.

You know, when you're a kid, you fall down a ton. But like, Lenny, when was the last time you fell down?

Not Not often, except my my son loves to pretend like we're falling. There's a

lot of pretendful.

And when you pretend fall, it's probably pretty jarring. It's probably relatively

pretty jarring. It's probably relatively new.

Yeah. For him, it's so fun. He loves it.

But yeah, for me, like such a long ways down.

Yeah. And I think that it's funny because you watch kids and it's like normal for them to reinvent everything they do. Oh, I'm learning to crawl. Oh,

they do. Oh, I'm learning to crawl. Oh,

now this walking thing, you know, crawling is like that's not for me. You

know, it's why kids learn languages so quickly because they are not afraid to make mistakes and they go through things much more rapidly. It's why you teach your kids to learn how to ski early

because boy, I you know, I've just made a decision. Hey, I've never been a skier

a decision. Hey, I've never been a skier and I'm just like too old to do it. I

think that we are trained to find a happy medium and then make as few changes as possible. Find a partner, get settled down. You know, find a job, try

settled down. You know, find a job, try to stay. It's a failure to transition to

to stay. It's a failure to transition to a new job if you can avoid it. You know,

that's our entire ma model. And so we create also in some ways a mental block around this idea of reinventing oneself.

You know you when you are told to reinvent to when you are told to change your first thing you think about is it really necessary? Boy it seems

really necessary? Boy it seems exhausting. I worked so hard to get

exhausting. I worked so hard to get here. Why would I need to? And I think

here. Why would I need to? And I think in the most inner psyche of some of us, it's that just wasn't the deal. The deal

was I did what I was supposed to. Went

to school. I worked hard. I got a job. I

built the brand. I got to be a manager.

I'm making the income. I have the, you know, whatever it might be, the partner, the the the family, you know, all this stuff. You're telling me after all this

stuff. You're telling me after all this time I gotta start over?

Like it sounds fun. You read Twitter and you're like, "Wow, all these people are doing all this crazy stuff, but in the back of your mind it's like I I just don't know why. Why did we get here? I I

don't I don't want to do it. I want to go back to the world where I can just keep doing things." So I think that this block is actually at the heart of the

matter today and and it's a skill reinvention and it requires time but time is so hard to find in your power years you know for the reasons we

mentioned with so many you know your goal when you're in your power years is to equally disappoint everyone in your life which sounds like a horrible statement but it's true. You have to you

you have 6 hours to give, 8 hours to give, 12 hours to give and you have 20 hours of demand. What is your prioritization mechanism? I am going to

prioritization mechanism? I am going to equally disappoint everyone. Not

disappoint group. My parents will not be more disappointed than my kids, than my health, than my family, than my friends, than my partner, than my work, than you know my retirement account. Like that's

essentially what your mindset is. It's I

need to equally disappoint everyone. Now

you're telling me that the number one thing is to reinvent when I'm barely able to manage this this disappointment algorithm. It's quite

disappointment algorithm. It's quite dark that I think that you know that there's the setup. And then the worst part is these two other psychological

factors. One is okay fine. I'll put the

factors. One is okay fine. I'll put the week I'll take a week off and I'll go figure out what people are doing and what the latest is and then it turns out

three months later that week off was is now antiquated. You got to keep doing it

now antiquated. You got to keep doing it because the target keeps changing. It's

not like I went from not having a job to having a new job and then I kind of grinned and bear and got through it and now I'm back in flow. It's like I'm never in flow because I gotta keep doing

this over and over and over again. And

the the most surprising observation I made is that the the ones that were the best at working in the past, the the ones that mastered the old game find it

the hardest to go through this reinvention stage. It's this sort of

reinvention stage. It's this sort of shadow superpower thing that I talk about. you know, you've the better you

about. you know, you've the better you are at mastering one system, the less likely you are to sort of recognize the

new one because your entire world is like, "This is working to me." And so, the weaker you are, the more excited you are about changing. Hey, what I'm doing

isn't working. Might as well change it.

isn't working. Might as well change it.

But if you're really good, you have no incentive to change. And perhaps even your employer sees you're doing great and the company itself is in this moment. So all of these things, whether

moment. So all of these things, whether it's the shadow, whether it's the exhaustion, whether it's the time, whether it's the fact that the target's moving creates this reluctance to

reinvent. But the number one piece of

reinvent. But the number one piece of advice to answer your question is you have to have the courage, you have to believe, you have to have the power to essentially say, look, I know the way we

work is changing and I need to stay moderate. I need to stay current. I am

moderate. I need to stay current. I am

going to cross that mental threshold and I'm going to prioritize that above all else. That crossing the threshold is the

else. That crossing the threshold is the key. And I'll talk a little bit about

key. And I'll talk a little bit about how one does that. But I think that I mean if there was one thing to get away from today's discussion is every person listening to this podcast needs to find

it in themselves to cross the threshold around embracing reinvention. That is

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What I think about as you talk about this is um I don't know if you saw this, they asked all the heads of the AI labs like Demis and Sam Alman and Daria just

like, "Okay, if everybody agreed to slow down and stop this stuff, okay, would you would you do it?" And they all said, "Yep."

"Yep." Which says a lot about just like they're all like freaked out a bit about how fast everything's going, how much is changing. And then there's the reality

changing. And then there's the reality of but that is not going to happen because the the game theory of it all is it doesn't work. You can't slow down because no no one will actually slow down. Whoever doesn't has a huge

down. Whoever doesn't has a huge advantage. And so I think a just a big

advantage. And so I think a just a big part of this insight is just like this is happening and there's nothing you can do to slow it down or stop it. And you

could either try to pretend like it's no big deal and it's going to be all right.

Or you could, as you said, get over this hump of just like, okay, I need to lean into this and see see what I can do.

Well, and and maybe there's a baby version of this that perhaps provides a bit more kind of soloulless and optimism. A baby version of this is that

optimism. A baby version of this is that you know the way that people did let's call it product management back in the day when HP and Cisco and AMD and these

other companies built products that were you know physical hardware they had long engineering cycles. There is a

engineering cycles. There is a discipline called product management that was birthed and that discipline had a very very specific uh very structured

way of working that was essentially imploded when the internet companies came along and Google for one built the APM program because they felt like hey

this product thing that exists in the market isn't really what we need and we're not seeing success and In fact, we're going to just train from the

beginning this new breed. And you know, that then birthed a lot of the current product managers. Microsoft and Meta and

product managers. Microsoft and Meta and other big employers started to kind of create a new new version. And for the first few years, there was it was very jarring because everything that they did

that they call product management resembled old product management pretty much in name only. And there wasn't like you go to become a business school uh you know you get a business school degree and all of a sudden you're a

product manager. You would have to work

product manager. You would have to work you have to build some expertise then you'd have to come in and help organize and collaborate and all this other good stuff. The next couple years are going

stuff. The next couple years are going to be like that where you know every three months we're going to have more agents different forms of judgment.

They're blurring the lines on what the the role and responsibility people from different backgrounds coming in. people

leaving the it's going to be chaos. But

as a couple of years go by, things will settle.

Companies will be built a certain way.

And it won't be that you'll continue to change the way you're working. You'll

have reached some form of optimization.

We're just not in that optimization in any way, shape, or form right now. And

so the speed of iteration and how you think about look, my job is not to move information. My job is to evaluate. you

information. My job is to evaluate. you

know, I have to think through what is success look like, whether this makes sense for the system. It's a totally different skill. But after a couple

different skill. But after a couple years, there's going to be some routinness to it. There's going to be some training. There's going to be

some training. There's going to be consistency. The job you had next is

consistency. The job you had next is going to look like the previous job.

Lots of this is so all I'm making a point is that you need to cross the threshold to stay modern because things are changing. But I I don't want to send

are changing. But I I don't want to send the point that for the next 30 years you're going to be on this merit round that's going to spin faster and faster and faster and then you're just going to have to run off the mer round and go

vomit in the corner. That's not at all what I'm suggesting. I'm just saying that right now is the moment when if you love building, you have to stay current

because you will be happier and you'll be more relevant. And if you don't love building, you have to recognize the industry is moving away from you. That

is the key point and and I don't think there's a person that's looking at the current way of building product. I don't

think there's a person that's been on this podcast that would disagree with that statement.

That is a really empowering point to make there that this is not forever that it's a couple years potentially maybe I don't know could be a little bit longer but it's not a forever thing where you have to do this you have to lock in and

and sacrifice forever. It's a this is the moment to to get on the rocket to get on the ship. I don't know synonymous the boat whatever metaphor you want to use whatever transportation

so I think that makes that would make me feel better I think the other like I don't know the the good again just to remind people like this you know there's

it sucks to have to change the good as you shared earlier comp has never been higher there's a lot of open roles uh people that are embracing this are having a lot of fun like you're like

most PMs are sitting there all day waiting waiting for stuff to happen, waiting for meetings and approvals and all this alignment and all this PR reviews and now it's like you can ship stuff so often like there's so much good that is happening. Maybe just

remind us again of anything else there just to inspire people to like okay this is working. I think let's go to the

is working. I think let's go to the individual you're describing. There's

someone who's sitting who's uh really afraid who's a builder who's like, man, my job is changing so rapidly and I'm so nervous and I have to think through

what's my career going to look like? But

I tend to ask the question like, do you really love your day? Like if you put green, yellow, and red next to the meetings you had and did that for a week

and then we looked at the color chart, I'll bet you the vast majority of of PMs that are in a product organization, they

show mostly yellow and red. And I'm

telling you, the ones that are moving into more of this build mode, it's mostly green and yellow.

and and and and that yet most of them are sitting very very afraid feeling stuck. So what I'm

suggesting is how do you then transition mentally and then physically into a moment of going from this moment of fear and being on the sidelines to being in

the game. What I have noticed, and this

the game. What I have noticed, and this is sort of a big kind of surprise to me, is there is a moment where they experience the first joy in using the

new tools. Everyone has a story and it's

new tools. Everyone has a story and it's always different, but it's super personal. It's going to be like, "Oh, I

personal. It's going to be like, "Oh, I was doing it a certain way and then all of a sudden I built this thing." And

oftentimes it's like my partner and I use this app that I built or I built a chief of staff app to keep track of my

inbox or I now manage, you know, the lights in my house using this thing. and

it's some silly thing and usually accompanies with the story like and I stayed up all night or I spent a bunch of time talking to my friends or or or

or hacking away or I just spent time talking to Claude about it. You know,

even my wife has a story about how she has this business that she's thinking through and she went from using the AIS to, you know, do business plan to

actually do test market and everyone has this moment of joy and then they're like hooked. It's like a they're they caught

hooked. It's like a they're they caught a bug and at that moment is when they cross the threshold between fear to joy.

And joy is the biggest antidote to burnout. And it creates opportunity

burnout. And it creates opportunity because the moment you have joy, the moment it doesn't feel like work. And I

think most product management feels like work if you're not building.

And we are now moving into a world where product management will be building and joy, not work. So you just need to find a path to get there. And the moment you

do your the rest of your human psyche creates time, doesn't feel like you're disappointing others and builds energy because people have more energy than they realize. They're just so exhausted

they realize. They're just so exhausted by the monotony of what was defined as product management. And so that is the

product management. And so that is the number one piece of advice is have you found joy? Now there's a class of person

found joy? Now there's a class of person who's like none of this is joyful. Like

I find the whole thing to be kind of boring, nauseating. I don't really like

boring, nauseating. I don't really like it. I'm like, well then you're probably

it. I'm like, well then you're probably not in for the next version of our industry, you know, and and you should be respectful of that and you should be honest with yourself. But there's a lot

of product people that are right now very anxious that actually are going to be happier once they cross the chasm and all they need to do is find a way to

create that moment of joy. you know,

whether that's an app on their side or app your work. And if you're a leader listening to this, you should find those moments of joy in your staff because that's contagious and it gets people excited. And that's what, you know,

excited. And that's what, you know, that's why I like doing what I do. It's

like I like building stuff and I caught the bug and, you know, I'm all there all the time. And, you know, I I I try to

the time. And, you know, I I I try to find TV shows that I can vibe code in parallel to because I want to watch TV, but I want to be vibe coding at the same time.

What's a good What's a good show for vibe coding? I think well I I a lot of

vibe coding? I think well I I a lot of the Amazon Prime shows are good. That's

not a knock on Amazon Prime but they're built on books. You know these books are like they're like structured and all that. So you know Alex Cross or you know

that. So you know Alex Cross or you know Jack Ryan uh you know what's hilarious is uh and you know when you get older you stop you you remember shows that you

love but you don't remember the plot. So

one time I just binge watch a season of 24. the show that I loved when back in

24. the show that I loved when back in the day, but frankly, I watched it and I kind of knew what was going on, but I vibe coded the whole time because it was like, hey, I'm paying attention here,

but I'm staying engaged.

Wait, let's actually follow this thread just like what's what's it what's your AI stack? What are you using to build?

AI stack? What are you using to build?

And what what are something what's what's something you built and something you vip coded?

I kind of am pretty allin on Claude these last three months. I was uh for a month pretty aggressive on codecs um because I found some of their newer

stuff to be uh especially the with with sort of the highest level of reasoning to be to be quite advanced. I find it hard to switch between tools I try to standardize to be to be direct like the

things that I build. I build a bunch of web properties for my community. So you

know anytime I see something that I can obsolete in code I try to build code around it. So if you had 100 people, one

around it. So if you had 100 people, one natural thing you want people to do is to meet each other. And you know, 100 people can't meet 99 others. So it's

it's you have to be thoughtful around who's the best person to meet and how do you match people up? How do you make sure that you match people with people they haven't met before? You know, what are their halves or their wants? That

entire thing used to be me sitting down and thinking like, "Oh, you know, Jay-Z would really appreciate meeting Annie, but I don't know if they've met before."

Now, I write software to do that. I

write an agent that goes in and actually does matching. I write an agent to

does matching. I write an agent to figure out, hey, what are all the jobs that my head of products are hiring? How

do we make sure that we uh make those available but then build a mailing list of folks who I think when they're interested in work can get matched up automatically. So like the next

automatically. So like the next generation of recruiting. Um I I think a lot about using AI for content. So when

I sit down, um, I have an AI that takes questions from people and then it's trained on my content like yours and it gives answers. But then I read those

gives answers. But then I read those questions, evaluate the answers and I'm like, hey, this is a theme I'm hearing and then I sit down and I write down

when do the LLM and I disagree. I go

through and so all of these things are are anything that I'm doing that I think I can you know replicate I try to obsolete myself. You know when I f

obsolete myself. You know when I f started my first job I asked the best engineer that I worked with who still is one of the best engineers I've ever met.

What what's the what's the definition of a great engineer?

And you know I thought it would be like oh someone who's got this degree or is wellversed in this technology stack.

He's like, "Well, the best engineer I know is my dad." And of course, this was before tech in that case. And he's like, "And my dad's definition is still with

my favorite, which is an engineer is someone who obsoletes themselves from everything they do."

That's the definition of a great engineer. And I've taken that to every

engineer. And I've taken that to every job that I've worked at. And it's funny because you'll run into people that are like, "No, no, I don't want to obsolete myself. That's my job." And I was like,

myself. That's my job." And I was like, ah, I think if I obsolete, there'll be a better job for me. What AI has done is turn that, you know, has basically put

an A-pop on that. It's like if you can if you can obsolete by just asking the AIs to do this for you. So why I'm saying that is I'm my stack is what can I do to obsolete anything and everything

I do on a daily basis.

That is super cool. I love I love hearing these stories. Like what I find is the best uh tactic here is just solve your own problem. Think about something

that's not great in your day-to-day or something you just want to uh improve and just like and it's like it sounds so easy. All you do is go to I don't know

easy. All you do is go to I don't know lovable or install cloud code, download codeex and just tell it I want to uh build the dashboard to control my sonus

and then it just tells you like walks you through everything you need to explore. And that's that's a pretty

explore. And that's that's a pretty advanced thing to try, but it's just like English. Like it sounds like I have

like English. Like it sounds like I have no idea how to do this. Like you just tell it here's what I want to do just like a person and it helps you figure it out.

Well, and I I agree with you. And then I think the question is like what skill do you have to have? Like for a while I was like oh that's a systems engineering skill because you need to be able to like train you know the AIs to go after

things. But in watching my wife and how

things. But in watching my wife and how she works and she's not an engineer by any means and she's getting tons of value. You don't even need to be an

value. You don't even need to be an engineer. You just have to be

engineer. You just have to be opinionated on what you want to see and know what you want. Yeah. Know what

know what good looks like.

And then the moment that you get it, it's when the light bulb turns on when it wasn't working before. And now you sit down and there's this moment where it's like, hey, I used to have to go and

work to do this, but now my agent's doing this. And then what's the next

doing this. And then what's the next agent I could do to make my life a little bit better? And that's where you catch the bug. It's such a powerful

thought that your job can be much more joyful as a product manager as any function but you know we're focusing on PMs just like if you look at your pie chart today of how much hap how happy

you are during the day you can actually be much happier in this future and I think that's hard for people to like really think just realize oh wow okay I can actually love this job so much more

I did not imagine that yeah and I think that it's because you're staring staring at change.

And I think change is such an alarm bell. It's hard to hear the voice that

bell. It's hard to hear the voice that says the thing that you are changing are the things you don't love because change is so hard for us that it's so scary,

you know, and I I respect that. So I

think that if your listeners are able to sort of understand that, hey, there is a world which is better, but I have to go through the tunnel and the tunnel sucks and the tunnel may mean that I'm going to have to change jobs. I mean my

prediction is the vast majority of people that are listening to this will be in a different job in the next 5 years because they will either choose to

move to something because they will that company will struggle to stay modern just like we're describing people need to stay modern companies need to stay modern or their companies are going to

be shedding and re and re returning off staff and so because change is apparent I think it's just so deafening people are very much gunshy to be uh excited about something that's forced on them

and you know let's be honest it's been forced on everyone you know it's not something that they chose so that that's why I have a lot of empathy but when I talk to people I try to dig through

forget what's happened and you know why how do we make the best out of it and the best is pretty good so say we've convinced a listener okay I need to make a change I need to lean

into this I need to take this seriously I can't just sit back and hope it all works out Okay. And then they maybe found a moment of joy. They built

something that's super cool and just like, "Hey, check this out." What other advice do you have for folks listening to help them be to survive, but just like thrive in this future that is emerging for product?

Yeah, I like thrive. I I definitely think that you, you know, you find that moment of joy. You have the engineering mindset, which is, hey, I want to obsolete myself on something that I do

today. again reduce my the the the less

today. again reduce my the the the less joyful parts of my job is a good starting point. I think that you know

starting point. I think that you know you have to find ability to increase pace. You know this is not a job. This

pace. You know this is not a job. This

is the next two years requires a lot of um fire in the belly, a lot of agency that I know everyone talks about. So,

for example, if you were to leave a job and start a new job, you probably don't view the new job year one at the same pace that you, you know, viewed your year five and your last job, you need to

kind of bring it. If you have a new relationship, you know, and if you've come off of a long-term relationship, my suspicion is your first year of that relationship, you put your best foot on.

This is what I'm asking. You got to find that reserve. You've got to make time.

that reserve. You've got to make time.

You've got to maybe disappoint others in a way that you haven't in the past in order to create time for you to stay current, find that joy, obsolate yourself from the things that are are

not worth it. I think the other thing you have to do is you have to swallow your ego. You know, I don't want a

your ego. You know, I don't want a single person saying, "Hey, I was a XYZ leader. I would only consider roles at

leader. I would only consider roles at that same level." I I want people, this is an extension of our last conversation, is not only is it invogue

to be hands-on and I see it's kind of a necessity. I need everyone to sort of

necessity. I need everyone to sort of say, look, if everything's changing, it doesn't matter what we've done in the past, that brand doesn't matter. As we

discussed, you have to have an egoless perspective of how to stay current and be not only willing but actually look for ways to even take something smaller

in order to make sure that you're kind of going through the tunnel correctly.

And then ultimately part of the way we we we swallow that ego is you stay long-term focused. You say, "Look, if

long-term focused. You say, "Look, if the way we build product is changing so aggressively, my job is to spend the next couple years

being on the boat that's, you know, leaving the station and going to the new world. Once I get to the new world, the

world. Once I get to the new world, the cream rises to the top. I'll take my skills, my leadership, and I'll go through it. But in the next few years,

through it. But in the next few years, if everything's changing, I definitely want to be, you know, current. And that

means you have to have a long-term focus." You know, my property is called

focus." You know, my property is called the skip. The community and everything,

the skip. The community and everything, they all kind of come down to this word called the skip. And I chose that word because the best career advice is always not thinking about the next move, but

the move after. What's the skip job?

What's the skip opportunity? Well, in

this world, it's not about what's the opportunity now and what's the journey.

It's about making sure that your skip opportunity is saved and you are able to get that high salary. you're able to get one of those premier builder drops and that's the world that you have to have

and the mindset you have to have.

Something you mentioned earlier was really interesting that in the next five years you predict that most people's jobs will be very different. What are

you imagining there? Like will there still be this product manager role? Will

PMs need to move closer to engineering?

What's kind of like the ven diagrams or spectrum you're seeing of where current PMs may go? Yeah, I I definitely think

that there's a world where PMS go to every industry as the what I would

call the agents of change because the PMs are the ones that can talk. They're

the ones that have the broadest view of the organization, but they look at it through the technical lens. And my hope is that most of our PMs are the first to

the tools and hence they're the change agents within their company. So let's

just play this out. In the next year, we start to see all these product organizations changing the way they build product. And all of a sudden, the

build product. And all of a sudden, the way we build product is identified and really really thoughtful and really far along. And then 12 months later, the

along. And then 12 months later, the marketing, the sales organization, the HVAC company that was bought by the

PR private equity firm, the school down the road, you know, everything's like, boy, we are just not up. We're not

current. We're going to get obsolete.

Who do we bring in to be in charge of this change? Well, you know, this person

this change? Well, you know, this person works in the future. We need to get to future. So, I'm like really bullish that

future. So, I'm like really bullish that product leaders are going to be like, you know, like those like dandelion, whatever you call it, seeds when you

blow it and they just go everywhere. I I

have that vision. Meanwhile, I think a lot of people going into product might be coming from design, might be coming from data science, might be coming from engineering because the ones that have

judgment, the ones that can talk, the ones that want to stay current, they might be like, well, what I don't necessarily want to just stay in my lane. I want I have point of view as to

lane. I want I have point of view as to how this should work. You know, as you said, from a designer point of view, designers may have a lot of those skills and opinions on what it should look

like. Maybe their uh platform won't be

like. Maybe their uh platform won't be the pixels or the visuals. They will be the product itself and they can adjacently move into product. So, I

think you're going to see this crazy influx and then this amazing ex, you know, kind of exodus and then you'll also see folks that are like, I don't know if I can get in. I know that's a

confusing uh kind of set of three changes, but that's explains why so many people have anxiety is all three of these are happening instantaneously.

There's a a line, they thought they buried us. They didn't know that we were

buried us. They didn't know that we were seeds that I think about.

I love that. We're into a lot of the darker.

Speaking of that, there's this hilarious tweet that just came out the other day that I have here where this guy describes the only four jobs that will remain in the future. Uh, so the only four jobs that exist in the future, one

is product engineer, vibe coder, PM slop cannon.

Number two is security s infra person.

Uh, number three is hot people, which is like you know like getting people to buy your stuff. customer

service kind of and like people the way they describe remember there are many ways to be no here's how they put it present a easy UX to the world is is that category and then grown-ups which is your

point of just like adults yeah so yeah I think there's I I read that and I I agree with that I mean I think the adults ex exist and I think anyone that's the top of their field that can talk and that's that essentially is

opinionated and can go broad that's kind of the third point of hot people so that's actually that reminds me so am a mole the head of growth at Enthropic made this really interesting point that so much of his time now more and more is

alignment as a product manager and we were joking what's the harder alignment problem aligning people in in a company or like AI's AGI and and I and it feels like

that's like a remaining and it's part of what you described somebody that can get done a change agent and a big part of that is like what a PM often is doing a lot of their time is align creating

alignment internally around what we will be doing what we're prioritizing that kind of thing.

Yeah. And I think that if you dissect what alignment looks like, a lot of alignment was getting people the right information, the ground level truth.

That problem is dramatically better.

That part of the job, frankly, just absolutely sucked. Whether it was the

absolutely sucked. Whether it was the status report or put, you know, I I was on projects where there was like docs that were sent to me and then I would

change the dock to then send it to my boss and then that boss would send it to, you know, and it was just like this movement of information where the ground truth was buried in some part of the organization and then there were like

all these people that were putting on their spin. That I think is changing.

their spin. That I think is changing.

But to your point, now someone has to decide and someone has to have an opinion and what to fight for. And that

conversation is now much clearer to have because you know the ground truth.

There's less spin. You know, the CEO can literally ask their agent, well, what is the situation? What how is this

the situation? What how is this performing? What does this customer

performing? What does this customer really want? You know, how does this

really want? You know, how does this affect the system? You know, is this really something that we want to change the product to enable? So that

conversation can happen, but now people can like fight it out, you know, with with with real with real credence, right? And and if you're a product

right? And and if you're a product person that that really does have an opinion and wants to make a point, you you have a forum. So alignment won't go away. It's just it's not going to have

away. It's just it's not going to have as much theatrics. And I think a lot of companies that are larger do have theatrics that I think AI are going to remove. And I don't know many PMs,

remove. And I don't know many PMs, there's some that lived for the theatrics, but frankly most of them are like this just seems like a freaking waste of time. I mean it's so telling

that 80% I bet you this is a statement 80% if you truly asked their you know your PM do you really want that boss's

boss job? Do you want their day? Not the

boss job? Do you want their day? Not the

pay, not the credibility, not the stature, but do you want their backtoback meetings? I bet you most of

backtoback meetings? I bet you most of them would say no. And what I'm suggesting to you is that answer is going to change in the next two years.

What's really also interesting is as much as this role is changing, engineering is changing even more. And

in my what I feel like is that the engineers that will continue to thrive are just are basically going to become more PME because the coding part is now going to be solved and now it's just what should we build? Is this great? Is

this the direction we want to go? Is

this going to what does success look like? So if you're like, "Oh my

like? So if you're like, "Oh my job is changing." Just imagine being an engineer right now and how crazy that must feel.

Yeah. And I think that the one advantage that engineers have is they think in systems and they think they think about obsolescence more effectively. So I

think that you know when you make a change you have to decide is this change going to be sustainable in the product that you're offering. I think an engineer has an edge there. I think an ed the other edge they have is like I

bet you we can build this to be more automated to be some blur. I think those mine already goes there. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think that every one of us like the product person probably has a little bit of an edge in judgment and communication. The engineer is going to

communication. The engineer is going to have a little bit of edge in the system scaling and how does this change affect folks? The designer is going to have a

folks? The designer is going to have a little bit of an edge with taste and all of these things will still remain important. And you know, obviously

important. And you know, obviously people that have all of these will do better than those that have one or two, but the the industry is more than safe as evidenced by the report that there's

more hiring and I think going to grow.

It's just different class of individual is what we're trying to communicate.

Uh the design piece is really surprising to me. The fact that this data show that

to me. The fact that this data show that the number of design roles is plateauing and just how teams are just not uh valuing design as much as you think.

Like you would think that design becomes much more important as the number of products grows exponentially that it's like a a way to stand out to build

something really beautiful and and and have a really thought through experience and it's interesting that that's not happening right now. Also just I've been thinking about like like there's no

world where I'm a great designer. I

can't just like use AI and become a great designer unlike an engineer like maybe a PM. I could become a much better PM with AI. AI is knocking like it will, you know, do some cool stuff, but I'm

never going to feel like I am a great designer now. So, it's really

designer now. So, it's really interesting that design isn't more successful right now with the rise of AI.

And it might be that we just don't know what to make of design in this era. You

know, that might be a piece of it. The

other piece might be just like there's product builders and then, you know, product, you know, information movers and they split up. I think that there

are pixel generators and then there are taste makers. And I worry that in design

taste makers. And I worry that in design maybe the industry itself conflates design with more production and not with

taste. And so I think there's a lot of

taste. And so I think there's a lot of companies that you would talk to and even when they were hiring head of design, they were thinking more around we need more production and great

designers are much more casemakers. I

think that is probably that bias is entering into the hiring plans in this era that we have today.

What a wild time we are living through, Nicole. Holy, holy moly.

Nicole. Holy, holy moly.

Yeah. Isn't it funny that neither of us are operational? There are days when I'm

are operational? There are days when I'm like, man, am I so happy I have the time to work on this and then other days that I think this is some of the most

interesting like being operational right now is quite a ride. And so there's good good and bad and you know co wasn't easy. I mean there was a lot of

easy. I mean there was a lot of challenges around you know working and and seeing so much change. So there's

always something but this one this one's you know everything's being questioned and you know including how you how you define joy which I I think is just absolutely fascinating.

Chaos is a latter as as the uh little finger famously said. Um NL is there anything that we haven't covered?

Anything else that you think is important for people to hear? Any other

advice? anything you want to double down on before we wrap up and get to our very exciting lightning round?

I would just say that there's a lot of room to be optimistic right now, but you have to find it within yourself to recognize that there

is a small period of change and exhaustion that's required to find that moment of joy. And I just urge everyone

to find those reserves to get there because once you do, it's infectious.

But the longer you wait, the harder it is to cross that chasm. And so I really want people to feel optimistic and find that moment of joy. But I also recognize

that there is a lot of activation energy that it takes to get there. And so my hope is that, you know, you you and there's a lot of people going through it. And so, you know, there's some

it. And so, you know, there's some safety and numbers here, but definitely I urge everyone to try their hand at at rethinking their craft.

And just to be clear, you're seeing many people in the community doing well, enjoying this, thriving. This is

possible.

Yeah, it's smiling exhaustion.

I see in my community, everyone. And

before it was just exhaustion.

So, I take smiling exhaustion over exhaustion. Um, but the pace is

exhaustion. Um, but the pace is relentless. I I don't have any uh

relentless. I I don't have any uh there's nothing I can say to sugarcoat that point.

What a time to be alive. Well, Nicole,

with that, we've reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready?

Go. Go for it.

What are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? You know, Lenny, I'm not a

people? You know, Lenny, I'm not a reader, so I don't, you know, I don't I I I I hate to admit this, but I kind of

vibe code instead of most consumption of code right now of content right now. You

know, all of the reading I do is like trying to stay up to date and that was a casualty, you know. So, I don't listen to as many podcasts I want to. I don't

read as much as I want to um because I have so much information coming from the agents that I have deployed and all the stuff that's going on with, you know, on on Reddit and X and all that. So, I I

don't have a great set of book suggestions, not unlike, you know, all your other um all your other guests that are great at this. you know, they they read prolifically and, you know, I I I

just don't I mean, I'll tell you, I I I read um I I don't know how much I loved it, and I'll just leave it in here in case people are interested, but I read

this book called James, which James is um the story of Huckleberry Finn told from uh Jim's point of view. I thought

that was absolutely fascinating because anytime you take a classic and then you look at it through the eyes of someone else and what you realize is that story

is quite powerful but you know very haunting and when you read Huckleberry Finn you're a kid so the distinction between seeing the innocence as not only

the book was written from Twain's perspective who was quite forward thinking by the way but you remember you were a kid at the time and now as an adult you see the the book from another

angle. I thought that was interesting. I

angle. I thought that was interesting. I

don't know if I'd recommend it to your viewer readers but I I thought I always look for things that I'm you know uh unnatural um stories that exist, you know, right in plain sight. So that was

an example of that.

I think somebody else has actually recommended that book.

So that's a second mention.

Uh next question. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show? You've already

shared some VIP coding favorites to be in the background. Anything else?

Yeah, I mean I think everyone's talking about Paradise. I I mean, if you haven't

about Paradise. I I mean, if you haven't watched the season 1 and season two, it's Oh, season two out. I didn't realize that.

Season two just is almost wrapping up and I haven't watched season two yet, but you know, it's a little apocalyptic in nature, but it's absolute fascinating

character drama about how um you know, how people deal with you know, very very challenging times uh and what motivates individuals. The other one that I really

individuals. The other one that I really like is Lionus, which is on Paramount Plus. Um, Lionus is a story uh really

Plus. Um, Lionus is a story uh really about uh sort of a covert CIA group and how they deal with, you know, protecting security for America and the importance

and what it means to commit to a bigger cause. I thought that was a really

cause. I thought that was a really wellwritten show. So, both of those I

wellwritten show. So, both of those I recommend. I do watch a return of

recommend. I do watch a return of television in uh and and as I mentioned I I vibe codes to certain shows and these two I don't vibe code to because I have to pay attention.

That's the ultimate that's the new bar if something's great.

Exactly.

Okay. Do you have a favorite product you recently discovered that you really love? Could be an app, could be a

love? Could be an app, could be a gadget, could be some something else. My

favorite product that I've discovered of late might be um kind of obvious to a lot of folks, but I um you know, I'm not a car guy. So, I'll just start by saying

that though I've um enjoyed kind of riding like the newer electric cars, I just I'm not there's a large large number of people that love cars. They

love driving cars and you know, talking about cars and repairing cars. That's

like the opposite of me. I just want my car to be super reliable. Um, and uh, I've had a Tesla for a really long time, a Model S for just a long time. And then

I've had it since pretty much they came out with them. And they uh, my daughter recently passed her driving exam. And

because she passed her driving exam, uh, one day my wife said, "Hey, you know, we got to get her a car." And I was like, "We do?" I never actually connected the

"We do?" I never actually connected the dots that she's going to need to drive a car. And I was like, "Well, when's she

car. And I was like, "Well, when's she going to go?" And eventually I'm like, "Okay, maybe we should buy her a car when she's not going to drive that much.

maybe I should use this as an opportunity to upgrade my car. And so I drove the latest Teslas that are out there and the ones with the the

self-driving.

And the self-driving works quite well, just to be clear. I mean, I I've have it now for the last month and about 95% of the time I self-drive. But the most

interesting thing is I had no idea that I actually have mild anxiety when I drive. That goes away when I self-drive.

drive. That goes away when I self-drive.

And I had no idea. And I my my wife noticed it when we were driving up to the mountains one day and it was crazy snowing. And I'm like, "We're going to

snowing. And I'm like, "We're going to do it." And she's like, "You are so

do it." And she's like, "You are so anxious when you drive." And I'm like, "I am?" Because Lenny, I've been driving

"I am?" Because Lenny, I've been driving since I was 14 years old because I grew up in Kansas. And so I passed the test when you I was 14. So, I've been driving

literally for nearly 40 years and I had no idea as I've gotten older that this pressing a button and going places and psycho is just so awesome. So, anyway,

the reason why that experience is interesting, yeah, there's the tech and all that. It's just like I look for ways

all that. It's just like I look for ways to reduce my anxiety. Anything that

causes anxiety, I try to eliminate at this point in my life, and this is one of them. So, that's a cool product for

of them. So, that's a cool product for me.

I love that as a rule. I've also become all in on self-driving. I've had a Tesla for a long time from the beginnings of their explorations into self-driving and it was always just like I don't know

this scary and now it's the opposite.

Like my wife prefers I selfdrive even though I drive well she just like feels safer when the self-driving is on there and there's and there's this like uh in the actual settings they give you a stat

of what percentage you're driving is self-driving and they noted it's since uh 14.2 I think was the release something like that. So that was like the release that everyone started being like, "Wow, it's actually very good

now." And I don't think a lot of people

now." And I don't think a lot of people realize that it's actually incredibly good. Like I haven't had a single

good. Like I haven't had a single concerning moment.

This is one of those examples in product where so many people try the previous versions that when you then tell your friend, a lot of people have Teslas obviously in California, but across the world. When you tell your friends, a lot

world. When you tell your friends, a lot of people are like, "Oh yeah, I tried it. I turned it off." So, I think

it. I turned it off." So, I think Tesla's got this unusual challenge of getting people to turn it back on. And

obviously, the newer hardware is better than the older one running the newer software. But once you go through one

software. But once you go through one experience, it can be hard to convince someone to try it again. And that's an addage in product and certainly applies here.

It's a downside of releasing early and often sometimes people just have this memory of what it might be. I feel like I feel like this like Uber where you most have to just start hearing about it from your friends telling you, "Hey, I'm doing this

thing." You're like, "Wait, really? I

thing." You're like, "Wait, really? I

guess I should try it. Yeah.

Yeah. I figured Yeah. They ought to just like So, here's a Tesla suggestion for anyone that's listening is Lenny and I should be able to gift 30 days free to

our friends of self-driving people that have turned it off because the referral of that plus the endorsement allows people to experience it for free and then they can

get their monthly subscription. Great

idea. that that uh that viral plus enablement I think is a is is a growth technique that you know they can have for free from us.

Such such a good idea. By the way, I love Mad Max mode where I love that just the personality of the stuff just Are you a hurry mode guy or are you a standard mode guy?

I flip between them, but I do feel like I'm hoping that the new release of the software keeps us in lane. Like I don't love it changing lanes, but it's Oh, like we're trying to hurry a little bit. I'm

bit. I'm Yeah, I wish I could just get it to go at a normal speed, but also don't change lanes because I just don't like Okay. Uh, next question. Do you have a

Okay. Uh, next question. Do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself coming back to in worker in life?

Uh, my high school quote in my yearbook still is my motto, which is uh, genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration

u by Albert Einstein. It's a it's something that um even an early age and you know it's not about genius being capital G you know it wasn't a new year

comment it was more like hard work is really what matters in life what's interesting is if you read that quote genius is 1% inspiration 99%

perspiration through the lens of AI right it's absolutely fascinating because it turns out the AI will do the perspiration unlimited

So I think what we're leaning towards is we all need to we're moving to a world where we're all going to be inspired and it's the inspired individuals and all of us that will that will you know

essentially continue to proliferate and don't worry about the perspiration but recognize that it it is the perspiration that that is that is a necessity to make things go. So um anyway I I I think it's

things go. So um anyway I I I think it's an interesting quote especially in today's era.

Final question. People may have noticed that we've started collaborating on your podcast and your newsletter. It's this

it's such an underappreciated under I don't know seen uh thing that you do.

This podcast, this newsletter, it fills such a gap in in the content out there around product building of just like very tactical important non-sugar-coated

career advice for people in product. Um,

and it what I love about it is it's not AI most of the time in spite of this conversation we just had. It's like very much like here's stuff you need to know uh that is not flashy and shiny AI AI AI

all the time. So I want to give you a chance just to tell people about this the podcast the newsletter just what what the ideas where they where they can find it. I started this property called

find it. I started this property called Skip because I really felt that there was a a der of content from operators

sharing best practices with uh with emerging operators and the idea was look I had been a founder before. I had been an executive before and I wanted to be

in a position where I can say hey this is exactly what I experienced and this might apply to you. And I noticed that most of the podcasts and the content out there were from folks that hadn't spent as much time and operating more time in

content. And and I was kind of the

content. And and I was kind of the opposite. Then I started building this

opposite. Then I started building this community that I spoke about last time, which was, you know, about 2030 at the time. Now it's over 125 head of products

time. Now it's over 125 head of products who are all kind of these builders top of their game and kind of reinventing what product management looked like. And

our goal is to collectively share our wisdom as operators to help people advance in career. And that probably that calling is probably more important

now than ever is everything's changing.

Um and so one of the things that we're launching next month by the time that you know we end up launching this episode is something called skip.help

where we have agents that have been trained on about 50 of our community leaders. And so you can go and ask a

leaders. And so you can go and ask a question. It might be preparing for an

question. It might be preparing for an interview. It might be a question around

interview. It might be a question around navigating your current environment. It

might even be, you know, how do I build a chief of staff app? And 50 of us, not just me, will respond. Uh, and this is powered by our friends over at Superme,

which is a great startup that um that actually by having these agents, you get the sort of wisdom of the crowds. And so

th those are the things that I I love.

and and obviously there the community itself is a very um curated group and it's you know there's an infinite weight list. A lot of people want to be in it

list. A lot of people want to be in it and I'm only growing it slowly because I want to maintain trust but I do have this mailing list called skip.coach

where we share our wisdom to a broader audience. So, um I know I've kind of

audience. So, um I know I've kind of gotten every single domain name that starts with Skip, Skip Community, Skip Shows, my podcast, Skip Coach, Skip Hel, but anyway, go to any of them and you

can triangulate all of them. I always

appreciate Lenny, your your support and your help and and in and building this property with me. So, it's been it's been great. You know, when I came on, I

been great. You know, when I came on, I don't think I had done my podcast yet.

And now I'm about ready to hit my 50th episode and you're a big inspiration.

And you're you're past 300, obviously.

And so, um, you know, it's fun to see, uh, how things change and then some somehow have how things happen. So, it's

been great.

So fun. Uh, I was going to ask you to show the domains, which you did. So,

it's skip.coach, skip community, skip.show, and then there's skip

skip.show, and then there's skip skippel is their new one.

Skip.help, which is launching around the time this goes out. And then you also have your Substack. I don't know if one of those takes you there, but it's theskipped.substackag.com.

theskipped.substackag.com.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The skip is the name of the podcast and newsletter and skip show takes us to both.

Nail, thank you so much for being here.

This was exactly what I was hoping. I

feel like people are going to leave this being like, "Okay, I get it now. I

understand what I need to be doing."

I appreciate that. And, you know, thanks for all you do for the community and for uh all the guests that um that you know, you you still have now probably two dozen of the folks on Skip that have been on the show or that will be on the

show. So, thanks for supporting uh all

show. So, thanks for supporting uh all of our efforts. We're trying to help as many product builders as possible and that's a great journey to be on together.

It is. Nel, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks, Lenny. Thanks, everyone.

Bye, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable,

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