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

[00:00] The skills that used to be really valued in product managers are changing substantially. It's going to be difficult. Our industry is very much in stress. Nothing's constant. Everyone's in a state of alert. If you talk to product leaders three years ago, their day was largely moving 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 open PM roles [00:30] 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 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. [01:00] future that is emerging. You have to find ability to increase pace. You've got to find that reserve. The next two years requires a lot of fire in the valley. [01:10] Today my guest is Nikhil Singhal.

[01:13] Nikhil is, in my opinion, right now, [01:16] the number one best source of career advice [01:19] for product managers and for tech people in general. He was a long time exec at Meta and at Google, CPO at Credit Karma. He's also a 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. [01:37] And through these communities and his 30 years of building consumer products at scale, and also his podcast, which I recently partnered with, he is constantly gathering and meeting with [01:47] and speaking with top product leaders around the world [01:51] 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 single product person needs to listen 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. [02:13] Seriously, do not miss this conversation. [02:16] Before we get into it, don't forget to check out Lenny's Product com for an incredible set of deals available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers, [02:23] With that, I bring you Nikhil Singhal.

[02:29] Nikhil, thank you so much for being here. Welcome back to the podcast. [02:33] Yeah, thank you, Lenny. I appreciate version two. And all my notes were like Lenny version two. So I'm quite excited about being back on the show. [02:43] You've done so well since the last time that I visited and, uh, [02:47] Appreciate the opportunity to share with you my current thing. Yeah. So you were actually one of the launch episodes, the first 2030 guests that I had on the podcast. [02:56] This was two or three years ago, something like that.

And a lot has changed in the world of product management since then. [03:03] And we're going to be basically spending this entire episode talking about [03:07] what is changing in the role and the career of a product manager? [03:11] 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. [03:22] 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.

[03:27] To kick things off, give us just kind of the big picture view. [03:31] into what is changing for product managers, the good, [03:35] And then maybe the scary stuff. Yeah, be a lot shorter of an episode if we just talked about what didn't change. [03:43] Wow. I think maybe I'll start with this. I think that when we first chatted, it was like maybe the end of COVID, I think. [03:51] The ZERP era, as we called it, zero interest, you know, kind of free money from investors was just kind of cresting.

[04:01] We talked about [04:03] how ICs are now more in demand [04:07] We talked about how these first round of layoffs are existing, that ex-growth companies are [04:12] are gonna be a struggle. [04:14] But if you really talk to product leaders that were kind of in that mode maybe three years ago, [04:22] They weren't very happy. [04:24] And what I mean by that is their day was largely a day of moving information from one to another. [04:33] Let me frame... [04:36] The way that my team is presenting the information to my boss so that that person can

[04:43] can frame it to their boss's boss. And [04:47] Generally, the function had become extremely focused on [04:52] responsibility without authority. [04:55] And so that is the greatest form of workplace stress. [04:59] Now, we don't talk about that. We talk about all the stresses that we have today. Boy, AI is going to replace our function,, etc. [05:07] 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. [05:12] Now, people were being paid well, [05:15] Layoffs were just starting.

The industry was huge. It was the biggest it's ever been. There were more product managers, more CPOs than ever existed in history. [05:24] What's changed [05:26] is [05:27] People are having fun again. [05:30] particularly product folks, because they're able to build, they don't have [05:35] to rely on as many people to have impact. [05:38] There's much more of a direct connection to their ideas and their ability to test and connect their ideas. [05:47] product instincts to their customers. And so in many ways, this is a complete renaissance. [05:54] for the product industry.

[05:56] 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 than they've ever seen. [06:06] they see their next job maybe being a founder, maybe being a CEO, maybe being in another function other than product. [06:13] but being in the sea level, [06:15] they're feeling like there's more opportunities than ever before. [06:19] So that's kind of a good, I would say, you know, honesty, it comes with a lot of strings attached. [06:27] I think that... [06:29] It starts with just being exhausted.

[06:32] I have never seen an industry that's more tired than they are now. [06:37] I mean, I think we retired during COVID, but for different reasons. [06:41] Now I think [06:43] Nothing's constant. [06:45] Once you figure out how to do your job, [06:49] In the past, you would be fine for a decade. [06:52] until you became a manager and then you would be fine until you became an executive. [06:57] Now, if you don't stay up in the next three months, they'll be like, oh, you're you're doing that thing that we stopped doing that three months ago.

[07:04] We don't do that anymore. Oh, you know, PRDs. Well, you know, that's not even a product. You know, everything feels like everyone's in a state of alert. [07:12] And, [07:13] I think that in addition, now you're hearing like tens of thousands of people are being shed by larger employers. [07:21] that are also hiring and paying [07:24] triple wages. [07:25] So like that's like mind boggling. But, you know, depending on your perspective, you might be on one side or the other. [07:32] And I think that particularly a lot of the mid-career people [07:36] people that are like, let's call it in their 30s, [07:40] You know, life plays this cruel trick on you.

[07:44] where you end up [07:46] Having your best experience. [07:48] most energetic years of your career, your power years of career, because you finally have figured out what you're doing. [07:54] But at the same time, you may be settling down, you may have kids, your parents are aging, [08:01] 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 day, [08:08] you have to exercise. [08:11] And so between your health [08:13] The family and friends that you hardly ever see, your parents, which are now worrying because you have to build a different relationship with them, they're becoming dependents.

[08:21] your actual dependence with your kids and then oh by the way your work which is [08:26] you know, will take whatever time you have, but it also changes all the time. [08:31] That generation is insanely stressed historically [08:35] And now we're like, Hey, stay up. You know, what's the latest in cloud code? They changed it this morning. I it's, [08:40] it's dizzying so i think there's joy but there's fatigue in a way that i haven't quite seen before [08:47] Wow. [08:47] What an incredible overview. [09:17] with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SaaS.

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[10:00] So you talk to, I don't know, hundreds of product leaders regularly, run these communities for CPOs and senior product leaders. [10:08] I guess on balance, are people doing... [10:11] would you say better than the last, than like two, three years ago? Or is it just like, oh man, everyone's like burning out and in big trouble? I think that how people would describe it and how I describe it is slightly different. [10:24] I tend to be... [10:25] more around like [10:27] When people are doing better, I think they have more choice and they're long term going to be happier.

[10:32] From that perspective, [10:33] I think people that are at the top of their game are doing much better. [10:38] for the reasons I mentioned, they're just more interested in their jobs. [10:42] I think that [10:43] They're more stressed. [10:45] but I think they're stressed because [10:48] they wish they had more time to feed the yellow lamb at night. [10:51] which is a different form of stress. [10:54] 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 malaise of decisioning that exists here.

[11:05] So I think that people are doing better. However, I think our industry [11:10] is very much in stress. I think that on average people, even if they're doing well, [11:16] 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 there'll be roadkill. [11:26] along that way. [11:28] 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 things are changing. And so change is hard on humans. And so I think that. [11:40] 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. [11:51] Let's think about the future of where things are heading. You talked about a bunch of the things that have already changed and how different the world of product management is.

[11:59] What do you think will change further in the next couple of years to give people a sense of where things are heading? [12:04] - Yeah, I had this meetup last Thursday. [12:08] 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. [12:17] 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 don't we do a show and tell?

[12:29] Why don't we just have you, if you're a head of product, just show kind of things that are interesting that are worth worth explaining. And so we had a. [12:37] startup go up and show what they're doing. And then we had some midsize companies and some late stage companies. [12:43] And, you know, what it was a few things that were really palpable. [12:48] One was [12:51] There was so much joy in the audience. [12:54] 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 one upping each other.

And they're like, your chief of staff does that. My chief of staff does this thing. [13:05] So that sort of builds on my point that people are having fun being hands on. [13:09] But the second thing, [13:11] is that the way they talk about how product decisions are made, [13:15] the way they talked about how prioritization is determined, [13:19] the way they talked about how information moves within the company. [13:23] Looked like a completely foreign animal from anything that I had experienced when I was working, you know, a few years back.

[13:31] And [13:32] I got up on stage and I said, you know, if you think about how we work right now, [13:38] and how you folks are all talking about using agents in your enterprise, how you're using chief of staff apps to essentially drive more productivity, how all of you are essentially spending all your time just focusing on judgment, [13:54] And you're spending all your time taking anything that can be obsoleted and writing software around it. [14:00] None of that was even in the language, even in the vernacular. [14:04] 12 months ago.

[14:06] So now what is it going to look like in 12 months? [14:10] And everyone kind of had a pause and they're like, yeah, this was sort of on, you know, it was impossible to anticipate what this conversation looked like 12 months ago. It's pretty hard. [14:20] to understand where things are going. But I would say, I think maybe I'll answer your question around where things are going in the next couple of years. [14:29] based on kind of how I think companies are going to change and how people are going to change.

[14:33] So I think on the company side, [14:36] I think that and then maybe I'll slant it more towards product for a second. So product leaders, [14:42] will increasingly get paid and be asked to drive judgment. [14:46] and then B, the tip of the sphere, [14:49] on trying to essentially obsolete everything else through software, through AI, [14:55] through agents. [14:57] And this is partly why [14:59] there's a lot of excitement. [15:01] Because just to be very honest with you, and you were a PM and I was a PM, [15:05] Most of the stuff...

[15:06] that you didn't like doing [15:09] are the things that AI is really taking a real crack at. [15:14] And so I think that's super interesting. [15:18] I think that there's a ton of that change that's going to happen. Some companies are doing it 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. [15:29] I think that... [15:30] there will be 10 to 100 times [15:33] more [15:34] changes [15:36] that will be presented to products than ever before, because now, [15:41] The cost of testing something, the cost of changing is going to be much, much low.

[15:45] And so, [15:47] 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. [16:03] I think that it's also evaluating whether, you know, we should change the product in one way versus another. You can't. [16:10] build 100 custom versions of the same product. It affects your brand, it affects the maintainability, et cetera.

So when customers are asking for things, when you're trying to think through how do you build something that's sustainable, differentiated, [16:23] That's judgment. [16:24] and evaluating whether it's successfully met that criteria, whether it's worth building and worth releasing. It's almost like the system skill [16:33] that's existed from the beginning of the internet. [16:36] 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. [16:43] that's kind of enabling capability. So that's the judgment of, boy, there's all these changes coming in, they're going to happen more frequently.

[16:51] You know, as an aside, because of all these changes, I think that in two years, [16:56] I think there won't be any more bad software. [16:59] I mean, this is maybe more of a wish and a dream than a prediction. [17:02] But, [17:03] I think that if you count in the week, in your given week, how much bad software you [17:10] come back with, right? You know, I have a house in it. [17:13] has like 15 different apps. [17:16] that run to control everything from the shades to the air conditioner to the garage door, [17:24] And almost every one of those apps are afforded.

[17:27] They don't work particularly well. They never get monitored. Things break. No one never checks it. All that stuff's going to get fixed. [17:33] Because someone's going to basically sit down and tell Claude to fix it. And it's just going to fix it. [17:39] And it's going to fix it. It's going to be more secure. So I think that that's changing. And so people will have a lot less tolerance. [17:45] for bad software. Along those lines, just real quick, a quick aside to your side, the prompt I constantly find myself using with Codex and Cloud is just [17:54] How can we make the product experience better?

[17:56] How can we make this better? [17:58] And 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 do the first seven. Exactly. There's gonna be like some super skill that's going to run against every piece of software that's in the app store. [18:12] 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, this is just a significantly more consistent, better, less buggy experience and more maintainable.

[18:23] And so that's why there's a lot of optimism, right? Because these changes can be done pretty automatically. - Yeah, just like, it's easy to, just to kind of finish that loop real quick, like, [18:32] So many of these apps are built by [18:34] engineers that are not the best engineers. They're engineers that, you know, like [18:38] companies hire that don't really care about their software. They're just like, this is just like a side thing building this platform. [18:44] thing that we have, just app, we just need to build an app, let's find someone to build it.

[18:48] They're not like product first companies. [18:49] And now all of these companies have access to the most skilled companies. [18:53] software engineer, cloud code, a codex, and all these other jewels. [18:57] So I totally see what you're saying. Everyone has the best engineers available now. [19:01] And it's just English to ask them to build the better thing or build a better app. So that's a really interesting point. It still boggles my mind. You know, everyone's like, oh, what's the cutting edge and all that? I think there's still... [19:12] I don't know if this is true even today, but very recently there were more lines of COBOL [19:18] than I think any other language out there.

[19:21] And mainframe sales continue to do pretty well, and they're unusually large line item for companies like IBM. [19:29] And part of the reason why these systems like [19:33] You know, 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. [19:44] Partly because these systems are so complicated, but they're built. [19:48] in mainframes, right? [19:50] And a lot of the engineers, and this is going to sound kind of morbid, but I think it's true, is a lot of engineers are dead.

[19:57] Like they literally are passed away. [19:59] They were written, you know, 10, 20 years ago. And, and like, [20:04] Going in and touching that code [20:06] is probably the last thing anyone wants to do. So nobody goes in there. [20:11] You know? [20:12] It's all downside. [20:14] 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's a big one. That's a bit of an aside. [20:24] I think that the other thing that I think is worth kind of signaling is, [20:29] I think that the way we, the skills that you need to be effective in today's world, [20:37] is an acceleration of what we were talking about last episode.

[20:42] We were talking about ICs. We were talking about hands-on. We were talking about opinion even back then. [20:47] before Claude and TrapaGPT and others came out. [20:52] I think what we're now seeing is, [20:55] companies [20:56] are looking very, very carefully at their staffing. [21:01] And they're asking themselves, [21:04] One, do we need this many people? Did we overhire? [21:07] And part of the reason is they're looking [21:10] Maybe we doubled our staff in the last five years. Lots of companies that are public have done that. [21:15] Do we get twice as much for them?

You know, it was funny when I was at Google, [21:20] now over 10, 15 years ago, [21:23] 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? [21:32] for Google to hit their numbers. [21:35] And, you know, there were back at the time 20, 30, 40,000 people. [21:39] and you know, [21:40] If you ask someone who wasn't in tech, you're like, oh, probably like 90% of those folks, obviously.

[21:46] And, you know, the answer is probably closer to like 9%. [21:50] You know, probably you need like 500 people to keep the lights on and to build that business. You don't need... [21:56] 25, 30, 40,000 people. [21:58] So there's a huge amount of overhead where companies hire not just because they want to have bureaucrats, because they want to expand. They want to try new things. [22:09] But I think that there's a judgment day that's come back. [22:11] where companies are like, look, [22:13] We aren't getting as much for the staff that we grew in the last five years.

And this AI thing requires a totally different skill set. [22:21] The combination is going to mean [22:24] This year, I predict in the next 12 to 24 months, [22:28] We're going to see massive shedding. [22:30] of staffs [22:31] and then massive rehiring. [22:34] But you might see a company shed 30,000 and higher 8,000. [22:40] But the 8,000 people they're going to hire are going to all be AI first. [22:45] 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.

[22:53] We want to set the destination differently with a much lighter payload. [22:59] And that's dark. [23:01] That's going to make this year and the next two years, you know, you're 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. [23:12] That's scary to hear. [23:14] We're going to talk about what [23:16] folks listening can do to be [23:19] to do their best to be in that second bucket of being rehired and kept.

Because there's a lot you can do. And there's a lot of people that, [23:26] know they need to change and adjust and they're not doing anything and that we want to talk about [23:30] maybe some of the blockers there. [23:32] One thing I'll note is I should have mentioned this earlier. I just did this... [23:35] report on job, the job market. [23:38] And interestingly, as of today, at least, [23:41] We have the most open PM roles [23:44] globally at tech companies [23:46] in three plus years. [23:49] The last time it was this high was kind of during COVID, basically.

So there's some good news there, at least for the PM role. I don't know. Did that surprise you, Lenny? [23:58] yeah it did because there's always the 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 [24:07] the most important valuable [24:09] 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 [24:15] But I feel like [24:17] what you said, where it's...

[24:19] deciding what to build, deciding if this is good and great and ready and prioritizing. [24:24] I feel like that's what remains. [24:26] So to me, it makes sense. [24:28] report came out in a fortuitous time because it was right before I was preparing to [24:33] kind of come on the show and, [24:35] The three points I was going to make is, you know, builders are going to have the time of their lives. [24:40] comps actually up and the bay area is you know essentially back in in uh [24:47] in favor.

[24:49] And I think those three things came very much loud and clear in your report. [24:54] And I think 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. [25:07] I think it depends on how you define what a product manager is. And I think that [25:10] For the first time, I think that we did have a dramatic shift in what's defined.

[25:15] We three years ago talked about, hey, product managers, there's lots of archetypes. [25:20] Some archetypes are actually more in favor. This was the IC conversation. [25:24] Builder conversation. [25:26] Now what we're essentially saying is, [25:29] the information mover [25:31] is essentially going to become a dinosaur. [25:35] And I think about half of the product people [25:38] that were kind of that grew into the industry, you know, have that skill and superpower. [25:45] And then there were a set of people who got in a product because they like to build stuff.

[25:50] You know, and, you know, folks like yourself who are founder, [25:53] who that was sort of the motivation into joining kind of the industry. And then they found themselves into this thing called product management, [26:00] Those ones are builders. [26:02] You know, and those people [26:05] are the ones that are being hired by your survey. [26:08] I think those product managers, everybody wants a builder. [26:11] And I think that interestingly, lots of engineers are builders, lots of designers are builders. [26:18] Lots of marketing folks are builders. [26:22] And I think builders wanted...

[26:24] is going to be the big tagline for the next couple of years. [26:29] And it is so fun to build. [26:32] I I'll bet you and this is a prediction that if you had to choose between preparing a podcast [26:38] and sitting in Kodaks or sitting in Cloud Code, [26:42] And like working on your laptop, you would prefer the latter. [26:45] It is so fun. Yeah, just like progress. He just makes 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, [26:54] I used to take a break and go and go change the light bulbs in the house.

[26:59] And the reason why I would change the light bulbs [27:02] is [27:03] That light bulb. [27:05] was broken... [27:06] But then I replaced it and the light came on. And man, was that satisfying. [27:12] Because in a product job, [27:14] There is very few days of satisfaction. [27:18] because you don't really have the ability to see something broken that gets fixed it's just part of [27:24] The challenge in having responsibility without authority until now, [27:29] 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. [27:42] And so I think that the builders are gonna have the time of their lives [27:47] And I think they're going to be very focused on judgment. I think that they're gonna invade [27:53] other functions. [27:55] I think there's going to be, you know, when I started the group five years ago, [27:59] We had for the first two to three years, until we got to about 60, 70 people in this community of head of products, we had one founder. [28:09] In the last 12 months, [28:12] as we've gone to about 125, we have 14 founders.

[28:17] 14 people [28:19] essentially have decided that their next job was not to take another product executive role, but to found [28:26] Founding CEO is now open to us. [28:30] I have one person, very senior person on, you know, in my group. [28:35] who interviewed for a CHRO position. [28:39] because they wanted a product manager [28:43] background. [28:44] for the CHRO position. What is CHRO? That's the chief HR person in the company. [28:50] Right. So you would never think. [28:52] An HR person would be a former product manager. [28:57] But now forward-leaning companies are starting to say, "Hey, [29:01] We need someone who can bring this obsolescence skill, this judgment skill, this empowerment skill, this builder skill...

[29:08] to the function. In fact, the function might be easier to learn [29:11] than the other parts of the job. [29:13] And we're seeing that trend that product builders are going to have both a broader range of opportunities, [29:22] 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 flip side has to be mentioned [29:37] I think that non-builders [29:39] And I think that anyone who sort of sees themselves as not loving, [29:43] like sitting down and building something.

And there may be reasons why we'll get into why you may not be in a position to find the time, let's say. [29:51] 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 an attack. [29:58] I just really found it to be a lucrative job. It's a, you know, it's a role where, [30:04] my ability to communicate. [30:06] My ability to move information was where I ended up enjoying it. I love team building, those kinds of nodes, which, by the way, I love all those things.

[30:14] Um, [30:15] But if you don't love building stuff, you're in trouble. [30:18] And I mentioned about half the people are in that camp. [30:22] So we're going to have that challenge where they're going to have to find a [30:28] perhaps leave the tech industry [30:30] They might have to... [30:32] You know, it might be that they... [30:34] you know, want to go build a new business outside attack, but use some of these AI tools, or maybe they want to find a job completely foreign. [30:44] to tech, but I think that this non-builder [30:46] piece is a sort of a mirror image of the builder growth story that we're seeing.

[30:52] There's so many directions we can go 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 a mole, the head of growth at Anthropic. [31:01] So he's had a growth, he's a PM. And he had this really interesting point that [31:05] as engineers can do so much more, PMs are getting squeezed. [31:10] 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 to them.

[31:16] And there's this push for PMs at companies to... [31:21] shipyards build stuff themselves [31:24] And what we took away from that chat is the leverage that PMs [31:29] often have is a lot higher not spending time coding and shipping [31:34] 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... [31:40] so fast. So there's still need for like prototyping to explore ideas and ideate and get feedback and align. [31:47] But he had an interesting take that like, I don't want to be like, it's better I don't spend time.

[31:51] shipping stuff. It's better I [31:54] do higher leverage work as a PM. [31:56] It depends what he means by shipping stuff. [32:00] Because I think that if you have... [32:03] An engineering team of 50 people building things for your customers is [32:08] And you're like, hey, I want to be the 51st. [32:11] because that's how I get leverage. I'm like, eh, it's kind of a cheap knockoff of an engineer. [32:16] If on the other hand, the thing that you're building [32:19] is ways to stay on top of what the 50 people are are doing [32:24] When in the past, [32:25] That was building tickets and backlogs and all of the things that we used to do to figure out organizations, manage standups, you know.

[32:34] That's the information overload that's happening. [32:37] What we saw when the CPS got together is all of the things they're building are ways to drive efficiency out of their product organizations. [32:46] They're inside the building. [32:49] kind of development efforts. [32:50] And I'm not sure that for the next five years we'll continue to build software that way. [32:57] But I think in the next two years, [32:59] people are going to change the product operating system [33:02] 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.

[33:11] We fully automated the way we do product standup. So to his point, look, if there's 15, 10 times the amount of stuff happening, [33:19] We need judgment to determine whether it's good. These are good or bad changes. [33:24] And right now, if it's manual, we're cooked. [33:27] So it's a combination of hiring good product builders with judgment and then hiring increasingly folks [33:34] whose entire job [33:37] 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 Zurb.

[33:49] It's actually through technology, but it's a totally different way of building software. [33:53] 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. [34:03] So now I just wrote something and my boss is happier because they get more detail. [34:08] And that to me is incredibly exciting, but it is a different direction of what you're trying to deliver. [34:14] than something that goes out the door.

[34:16] That is such a good distinction and makes all the sense. Basically it's [34:19] Uh, [34:20] 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. [34:26] - That's right, that's right. I think a few other things that I would just note around how things are gonna change the next couple years, I think that adults are still gonna be needed. [34:34] I think companies are going to grow. They're going to grow quickly. [34:37] I think those that are driving some of these initiatives are classic founders.

[34:43] And AI is great at supplementing a lot of things, but I think, [34:48] Judgment comes in the form of [34:51] a combination of expertise and wisdom. [34:54] And so I think that increasingly I hear from my groups that, hey, I'm attractive, [35:00] to this company, [35:01] because I have wisdom, but I stay hands on. I have credibility with the founder, [35:07] So I can have a conversation with that individual in his or her language and [35:12] But I have... [35:14] weight to my thinking. I have seen the movie. I have experienced [35:18] that actually would help them as they take this turn.

[35:22] So adults are still going to be important. [35:24] I think [35:24] PACE. [35:26] will continue to go up. [35:27] partly because people want to feed the beast, the sort of LLMs that are running at night, [35:33] And I think partly because there's just such an opportunity to keep moving so much faster. [35:38] And I think that's going to be dizzying and I'm not excited about. [35:42] what that causes for burnout. [35:44] Sadly, I think that geography and actually diversity [35:49] is going to take a step back. [35:50] I think that we were very good [35:53] about driving more, as we grew the industry, we started looking at people who were from different backgrounds.

[36:01] to populate it. [36:02] including different locations. [36:04] But I think that because the AI wave is so heavily coming from the Bay Area, [36:11] And because companies are hiring fewer folks, [36:14] They're hiring people that look and act like themselves. [36:17] So age. [36:19] gender, [36:21] I think, you know, ethnic backgrounds, all of those are taking a hit. [36:27] And I think that we will have stepped back [36:30] quite a number of years. [36:32] 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, [36:39] probably more now than I did in the last five years. [36:43] Because I think it's an underbelly of what we're seeing. And I don't think that anyone's intentionally doing anything. [36:49] But I think when pace is so high, [36:52] The fact is that, you know, [36:54] women are having kids and in those power years and, you know, [36:58] and they just don't have the time. [37:00] to a lot to spending their nights and weekends and cloud code. [37:05] And so that's an impact. And, you know, we don't talk about it as an industry, but it's absolutely true.

[37:11] And then the last thing I would just say, and maybe this goes into some of the advice as well, is... [37:17] I think that one of the most surprising shifts we're seeing is, [37:21] is your brands don't matter as much as how modern you are in your ability to deliver product. [37:30] In the past, I think for the last 10 years, [37:33] In fact, have you seen the movie before? [37:35] Even in this last podcast episode we did, Lenny, we talked about, hey, brands matter, [37:41] You really need to make sure that you… Like personal brands.

[37:44] their personal brands. Hey, I've worked for this company, they've delivered products, they've been at scale. [37:49] So then people are like, oh, that person certainly knows what we're doing, right? And, you know, it's like, well, tell me about all the different experiences you've had. [38:00] But now if every way of building software and how we deliver product is completely alien to how it was in the last years, [38:09] you know, 10 years. [38:11] how you delivered in that sort of version one [38:15] is gonna be less and less relevant.

[38:18] So lots and lots of feedback that I'm hearing from interviews is like, [38:22] put you in a scenario, what tools do you use, what's your judgment, how do you think? [38:27] It's not about... [38:29] Five years ago, you shipped this thing. What was your thinking that went into it? [38:33] And so how modern you are now becomes the career advice. [38:39] Not did you pick up. [38:40] the established brands, because what if the established brands is very much working in a way that's not current? [38:48] You work there for six years, you come out, and it feels like you're in a totally different world, right?

So that's why I think the next two years and these changes are so profound and quite frankly confusing to people. [39:00] That is such an interesting insight that the logo, like used to be Fancy Devil, these logos in your... [39:05] resume and now you're saying sometimes that may hurt you because that company is not seen as a very ai forward company and second of all people are looking for just like what have you actually done [39:14] We're actually aware of what's going on. [39:16] Well, I was just going to say some of those biggest brands, it's hard to even talk about what you've done.

[39:21] you know it's like you know if you're working in 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 [39:30] 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 has worked there, I understand and respect that. And that is a promotable. [39:40] you know, achievement. [39:42] But it just falls very flat. [39:45] on a conversation where someone's like living in the future and product is now totally different.

Right. So that distinction is the is the thing that I want to just call out that, hey, that's happening every day right now. [39:56] 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. [40:04] Yeah, and in fact, maybe I almost looked upside down in terms of importance. [40:09] You know, in some ways, [40:11] We start our careers as builders, many of us. [40:14] and then we get taught [40:16] that leverage scale [40:19] organizing, streamline, empowering, enabling, [40:23] Don't do the build yourself.

Get others to do it. Stop working on the car, work on the factory. That is the maturation of our industry. [40:33] Then you find out [40:36] What if it turns out the scale can be done [40:39] very differently. [40:41] And all we care about is your opinion and what you build. [40:44] That's [40:45] Very charring. And that's what we're living through right now. [40:49] So let's follow this thread of specific advice to [40:53] PMs. [40:54] right now. [40:55] whether they're mid-career, senior, getting started, what are some specific things that you think people should do?

[41:02] to do well in this [41:04] emerging future. [41:06] Change is really hard for us. [41:08] And I think [41:10] as humans were not really designed [41:13] to change very easily. Like if you think about it, [41:17] You know, I was thinking, you know, about why is it hard for us to change when in some ways change can lead us to much better outcomes? [41:26] You know, we're almost like told to change less as we grow older. [41:31] You know, when you're a kid, you fall down a ton. But like Lenny, when was the last time you fell down?

[41:37] Not often, except my son loves to pretend like we're falling. So there's a lot of pretendful. [41:43] When you pretend fall, it's probably pretty darn. It's probably relatively new. Yeah, for him, it's so fun. He loves it. But yeah, for me, it's such a long ways down. [41:52] 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, now this walking thing. Yeah, crawling is not, that's not for me. [42:05] 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. [42:16] Because, boy, you know, I just made a decision. Hey, I've never been a skier and I'm just like too old to do it. [42:23] I think that [42:25] We are... [42:26] trained to find a happy medium and then make as few changes as possible find a partner get settled down and [42:33] You know, you find a job, try to stay. It's a failure. [42:37] to transition to a new job if you can avoid it. [42:41] You know, that's our entire model.

And so we create also in some ways a mental block. [42:48] around this idea of reinventing oneself. [42:51] You know, when you are told to reinvent, [42:55] to when you are told to change, your first thing you think about, is it really necessary? Boy, it seems exhausting. [43:01] I worked so hard. [43:04] to get here, why would I need to? [43:07] and [43:08] I think in the most inner psyche of some of us, it's [43:12] That just wasn't the deal. [43:15] The deal was I did what I was supposed to.

[43:19] Went to school. I worked hard. I got a job. I built a brand. I got to be a manager. I'm making the income. I have the, you know, whatever it might be, the partner, the family, you know, all this stuff. [43:31] You're telling me... [43:33] After all this time, [43:35] I got to start over. [43:38] Bye again. [43:39] It sounds fun. You read Twitter and you're like, wow, these people are doing all this crazy stuff. [43:44] But in the back of your mind, it's like, I just don't know why.

[43:47] Why did we get here? I don't want to do it. I want to go back to the world where I can just keep doing things. [43:55] block [43:56] is actually at the heart of the matter today. [43:59] and it's a skill reinvention [44:02] And it requires time. [44:05] But time is so hard to find in your power years. [44:09] 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. [44:17] which sounds like a horrible statement, but it's true.

[44:20] You have to, you have six hours to give, eight hours to give, 12 hours to give, and you have 20 hours of demand. [44:28] What is your... [44:29] prioritization mechanism. [44:31] I am going to equally disappoint everyone, not disappoint one 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... [44:42] you know, my retirement account. Like that's essentially what your mindset is. [44:46] It's I need to equally disappoint everyone. Now you're telling me [44:50] that the number one thing is to reinvent things.

[44:54] When I'm barely able to manage this disappointment algorithm, it's quite dark. [45:00] that I think that, you know, there's the setup. And then the worst part [45:05] is these two other psychological factors. One is... [45:08] Okay, fine. [45:10] I'll put [45:11] the week, I'll take a week off. [45:13] And I'll go figure out what people are doing and what the latest is. [45:17] And then it turns out three months later that week off, [45:21] was is now antiquated you got to keep doing it because the target keeps changing it's not like [45:27] I went from not having a job to having a new job, and then I kind of grinned and got through it.

[45:34] And now I'm back in flow. It's like, I'm never in flow because I got to keep doing this over and over and over again. [45:40] And the most surprising observation I made is that [45:44] the ones that were the best at working in the past, [45:48] the ones that mastered the old game, [45:51] find it the hardest to go through this reinvention stage. It's this sort of shadow superpower thing that I talk about. [45:58] You know, you've, [46:00] the better you are at mastering one system, [46:03] the less likely you are to sort of recognize the new one.

[46:07] because your entire world is like, this is working to me. [46:12] And so the weaker you are, the more excited you are about changing. [46:17] "Hey, what I'm doing isn't working, might as well change it." But if you're really good, [46:21] you have no incentive to change. [46:23] And perhaps even your employer sees you're doing great. And the company itself is in this 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. [46:37] creates this reluctance to reinvent.

But... [46:40] The number one piece of advice to answer your question is, [46:43] is you have to have the courage to, [46:46] 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. So I am going to. [46:54] cross that mental threshold [46:57] And I'm going to prioritize that above all else. [47:01] that crossing the threshold [47:03] is the 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... [47:10] Every person listening to this podcast needs to find it in themselves to cross the threshold around embracing reinvention. [47:18] That is the world that we live in now. [47:21] Damn, Nikhil, this hits hard. [47:23] I told people you... [47:25] Eat on sugarcoat stuff. And this is what we're experiencing now. [47:55] security leader that I talk to is feeling the increasing weight of protecting their organization, their business, and not to mention their customer data.

Because things are moving so fast, they are constantly reacting, having to guess at priorities, and having to make do with outdated [48:11] Vanta automates compliance and risk management with over 35 security and privacy frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA. This helps companies get compliant fast and stay compliant. More than ever before, trust has the power to make or break your business. [48:29] Learn more at com slash Lenny. And as a listener of this podcast, you get $1,000 off Vanta. [48:36] That's com slash Lenny. [48:39] What I think about as you talk about this is, I don't know if you saw this, they asked all the heads of the AI labs, [48:45] like Demis and Sam Altman and Dario, just like, okay, if everybody agreed, [48:50] to slow down and stop this stuff?

Would you do it? [48:54] And they all said, yep. [48:57] 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. [49:04] And then there's the reality of, but that is not going to happen because the game theory of it all is it doesn't work. You can't slow down because no one will actually slow down. Whoever doesn't has a huge advantage. [49:16] And so I think it's just a big part of this. [49:19] Insight is just like, this is happening.

[49:21] And there's nothing you can do to slow it down or stop it. And you can either... [49:26] try to [49:26] Pretend like it's no big deal and it's going to be all right. Or you could... [49:30] As you said, get over this. [49:32] hump of just like, okay, I need to lean into this and see what I can do. [49:36] - Well, and maybe there's a baby version of this, that perhaps provides a bit more kind of solace and optimism. A baby version of this is that,