Today, I want to share 15 observations from my first trip to China in 10 years.

I just came back from a 2-week trip to Shanghai and Hangzhou and it was eye-opening to see how the world’s 2nd largest economy operates today.

You can’t understand the AI race without understanding China and I think every product builder should visit at least once. I hope this post gives you a taste of what it’s like to live and work there.

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Chinese AI work culture isn’t for the faint of heart

1. 996 is real, but many tech workers show up and work even later. Employees at many Chinese AI startups roll in around 11 AM and work until 11 PM with lunch, dinner, and boba breaks in between.

2. Top AI labs run on young, single talent. The workforce at top AI companies in China is overwhelmingly people in their 20s and early 30s. They don’t drink, smoke, or party much — many just work and order food and boba delivery to the office. In many ways, this looks a lot like AI work culture in the Bay Area.

3. Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen are the AI tech hubs. Beijing has Z.ai’s GLM, Moonshot’s Kimi, and ByteDance’s Doubao. Hangzhou has Alibaba’s Qwen and DeepSeek while Shanghai has MiniMax. Shenzhen is the global hub for robotics and physical AI with 57,000+ robotics companies.

4. Many Chinese tech employees rely on Claude and Codex via VPN. Despite Anthropic and OpenAI blocking access in China, employees at Chinese AI labs use VPNs and special credit cards to access the best US models. Bypassing the Great Firewall is routine for China’s younger generation.

5. The government is pouring billions into AI and one-person companies (OPCs). Youth unemployment (age 16-24) sits at 16%+, so the government is heavily encouraging people to start one-person companies. Cities compete for the best AI founders by offering subsidies like Hangzhou’s 1B yuan ($140M USD) OPC fund.

Living in China feels like the future (especially if you’re on US income)

6. Ride sharing and delivery are incredibly cheap. DiDi rides cost just $3-10 USD for most city trips compared to $30+ for an Uber in San Francisco. You can also get almost anything delivered for a few bucks. I got boba delivered to my hotel room for $2 and it arrived in a fancy champagne bag. Many younger families just order delivery for dinner because it’s more convenient than cooking.

7. Live-in nannies and home chefs cost a fraction of US prices. A standard live-in nanny in Shanghai runs $1,100-1,700 a month all-in and a part-time helper for cooking and cleaning is $7-10/hour. In Hangzhou, I met a mom who brought her nanny on vacation just to take care of the kids.

8. WeChat runs payments and everything else. It’s an entire operating system in China with mini apps for ride sharing, public transportation, food delivery, and more. Payment is almost entirely done through QR codes — I didn’t pull out my credit card or cash a single time in two weeks.

9. Chinese electric vehicles have taken over the roads. New EVs hit 54% of all new car sales in 2025, and Chinese brand BYD has overtaken Tesla globally with 2.26M electric cars sold. The BYD Qin L starts at $16,500, which is half the price of the Tesla Model 3 at $33,500.

10. The infrastructure is more modern than New York or Tokyo. Shanghai Metro is 819 km vs. NYC’s 472 km, and China operates 50,000+ km of high-speed rail, or two-thirds of the world’s total. Riding the Shanghai Metro and then reading about Bay Area BART train budget cuts is a strange experience.

The social contract in China is fundamentally different

11. There are cameras everywhere. China has 750-800 million surveillance cameras — more than half the world’s total, or 1 camera per 2 people. Walk down any sidewalk in Shanghai and you’ll see poles with 7-8 cameras on them. Living there, it really does feel like every action is being watched and recorded.

12. As a result, almost nobody breaks the rules. There’s very little speeding or street crime. China’s blood alcohol limit is 0.02% (vs US 0.08%), so people won’t even take a single sip if they’re driving. Walking around at night with my kids felt safer than in most US cities I’ve lived in.

13. Family gatherings revolve around 3-hour meals at high-end malls. Multi-generational families gather at mall restaurants, order way too much food, share a bottle of baijiu, and stay for hours. The mall is the center of weekend social life, not just a place to shop.

14. The elderly are living their best lives while youth face pressure. Go to any park and you’ll see retirees dancing, playing yo-yo, and singing in groups. Meanwhile, many young people are “lying flat” — living off their parents’ income with no plans to chase a career.

15. The post-2022 expat community is much smaller and more committed. The 2022 Shanghai COVID lockdown broke a lot of trust among expats. Combined with geopolitical tightening and a slower economy, the casual “3 years and out” expat crowd is mostly gone. What’s left is a smaller community of people married to locals or running businesses there.

5 tips if you’re thinking of visiting

China is arguably the most modern country that I’ve been to, so I think every product builder should visit it at least once. But thanks to the Great Firewall and other restrictions, you have to really prep ahead of time.

5 practical tips if you’re thinking of making the trip:

Read more

Today, I want to share 10+ years of PM lessons in just 12 minutes.

I’ve been a product leader at companies like Roblox, Reddit, Amazon, and Meta. But the funny thing is that:

What I believe in is often the opposite of how big companies like to work. 😅

Watch my video now to get my unfiltered take on how to be a great PM in the AI era.

Timestamps:

• (00:00) Why what I believe in often the opposite of how big tech works

• (00:18) Speed is the only moat: Build fast feedback loops

• (02:34) Focus is a superpower: Say no 10x more than you say yes

• (05:00) Product over process: Reject PM theater

• (07:32) Seek the truth: Ban decision by committee

• (09:45) Builders over bureaucrats: Start with proof of work

Watch now on YouTube or keep reading below.

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Speed is the only moat

1. Build rapid feedback loops. The faster you iterate with real users, the better your product will be. Build a prototype in the morning and get user feedback by lunch. Reject doing 3+ rounds of internal reviews before talking to a real user.

2. Ship to concentric circles. It’s almost always a bad idea to ship a new product to everyone at once. Instead, run staff alphas and customer betas to catch issues and improve quality before launch. I genuinely don't know how to build great products without a community of beta users I can talk to daily.

   

3. Small teams ship faster. A team of 4-6 full-stack builders who are empowered to co-create with users will out execute a 50-person org any day. The key word here is “empowered” — if you hire a team of A players, give them the autonomy to listen, ship, fail, and learn with real users.

4. Iterate with AI first. Everyone now has an AI teammate who’s available 24/7. So work with AI to summarize feedback, draft plans, and improve prototypes BEFORE you meet with your team. Doing the basic AI work ahead of time is now a baseline expectation.

5. Become the user. I estimate that less than 10% of PMs actually dogfood their product on a weekly basis. Use your product like a first-time user and write a friction log of how annoying the experience is. Nobody is too senior to test their own shit.

Example: Boris (the creator of Claude Code) asked for user feedback on X and got 100s of replies. He then worked with AI to ship dozens of fixes on the spot. He’s the perfect example of a small team (of 1 🙂) iterating fast with real users.

Focus is a superpower

6. Do fewer things better. I don’t believe in more than 1-3 P0 projects per quarter. Focus on solving the biggest user pain points that grow your business instead of trying to build everything at once. You have to prioritize until it hurts — saying “why don’t we just do both” or listing 5-10 priorities is a red flag.

7. Do the simple thing first. Always ship the simplest thing that could work and avoid solving problems that don’t exist yet. For example, you probably shouldn’t optimize for scale if your 0-1 product doesn’t have product market fit yet. Keep repeating this mantra to yourself and your team.

8. Validate your riskiest assumption first. Every product has a few assumptions that, if wrong, will kill the whole idea. Validate these assumptions with real users using a simple prototype or A/B test. Don’t work on secondary features if your core hypothesis remains unproven.

9. Protect your calendar. Your calendar decides what you actually work on and you can’t build good products if you don’t control your time and energy. I do deep work in the mornings when I have mental clarity and I’m ruthless about declining meetings that drain my energy.

10. Say no 10x more than you say yes. Get comfortable saying no to features, meetings, and even user requests that don’t align with your highest impact work. Show empathy and explain your rationale clearly — the other party will usually understand.

Example: I once worked at a company where the CPO announced 9 priorities for the year. He even had a great acronym to help people remember all 9 things. A year later, we barely made any progress and he reduced the priorities to 3.

Lack of focus is an extremely common problem in successful tech companies. Anthropic is an example of a company that did it right:

Product > process

11. Reject PM theater. I’ve talked about how important it is to build feedback loops with real users. But most PMs are focused on internal theater like polishing documents and doing endless pre-meetings before the actual review. Obsess about the product that your users actually use, not your internal artifacts.

12. Build minimum viable plans. Stop pretending that you know exactly what to build a year from now. Instead, create a minimum viable plan that cover the user problem, vision, goals, principles, solution, and what you’re not doing. Keep it to one page and update it as you learn. Reject annual planning and OKR theater.

13. Practice prototype first development. Prototypes give people a much better sense of your solution than any slide deck or document. They’re also more fun to build and easier to test with real users. So validate interest with a prototype BEFORE you create your PRD and design.

14. Obsess about the details. Default states, edge cases, and good copy — these details are what separates a great product from slop. It doesn’t matter how senior you are, you have to give a damn about the tiniest details to ship something that you can be proud of.

15. Simplify product reviews. Nothing slows velocity like waiting weeks to get on an exec’s calendar before you can ship. If you’re a leader, empower your teams to ship freely to beta users. Review prototypes async instead of blocking them around your busy schedule.

Example: Ramp grew to $32B in record time by empowering their teams to ship fast. As Geoff (Ramp’s CPO) explains in the post below, Ramp teams can ship to beta users at any time. The line that I particularly love is “leadership has 48h to review or it ships.” This puts accountability on execs not to slow down velocity.

Seek the truth

16. Arrogance is the biggest turn off. I cannot stand product leaders and creators who think they’re better than everyone else. The best leaders I’ve met are also the most humble because they’ve failed before and seen some real shit. If you’re not humble then you’re not listening and you won’t build great products.

17. Ban decision by committee. I don’t believe in cross-functional alignment as a goal. Trying to make all stakeholders happy will inevitably compromise the product experience. Seek diverse opinions first, then have a single person make the call and own the outcome.

18. Don’t surround yourself with sycophants. Great companies decay when leaders surround themselves with people who won’t challenge their ideas. Find and reward the people who are willing to ask hard questions. If everyone’s nodding along in your review, that’s a bad sign.

19. Assume good intent. When you disagree with someone, listen to understand instead of to defend your opinion. Chances are they’re making a great point you haven’t considered. The best debates are collaborative truth-seeking exercises, not battles to be won.

20. Be willing to be wrong. Most decisions are reversible two-way doors. The right move is often to just decide and learn instead of waiting for perfect information. I love this quote from my interview with Yana: “By the time you’ve debated 2 ideas, I’ve already shipped 10.”

Example: Recently at work, stakeholders pushed for a feature I resisted for weeks. But I kept an open mind by talking to users and testing different prototypes. Eventually, these feedback loops changed my mind. I admitted I was wrong, showed the evidence, and now we’re building something we’re confident about. The goal is to find the truth, not to prove you’re right.

Builders > bureaucrats

21. Hire builders, not bureaucrats. Look for people who genuinely care about crafting great products instead of people doing it to climb the career ladder. Find people who have that “just figure it out” energy — the willingness to wear multiple hats to solve problems instead of waiting for permission.

22. Proof of work > credentials. Nobody cares about your FAANG pedigree or AI product certificate. Hire high agency people who have built great side projects or demonstrated proof of work. The only credential that matters is what you’ve shipped and your ideas to improve the product.

23. Hell yes or no. If you’re not excited about a candidate, don’t hire them hoping they’ll work out. One great hire beats three mediocre ones. Never lower the bar because you’re desperate to fill a role.

24. Your job title doesn’t matter. The best teams blur the lines between PM, design, and engineering. I love when engineers update my spec directly and designers let me tweak copy in Figma. Build a team of full-stack builders who trust and respect each other’s craft.

25. Replace yourself. Your job as a leader is to make yourself unnecessary. If your team can’t function without you for a week, then you’ve failed as a leader. The best leaders empower others so they can move on to new problems.

Example: I’m hiring for a senior PM right now, and I explicitly wrote in the job description to link your best side project or shipped work. I hate seeing vague jargon like “Agile expert” or “strategic product leader.” That stuff is meaningless. Just start with what you shipped and what the impact was.

So there you have it — 25 things I believe in to build great products.

Write down your own list and work for companies that share the same values and principles. It’ll make your life much easier, I promise.

For more, watch my 12-minute video and check out my 40 life lessons I know at 40 that I wish I knew at 20. Here’s a handy infographic with all 25 things I believe in:

Today, I want to share some personal lessons about my creator journey.

This year I exceeded my creator goals by 2x, but it wasn’t all wins.

So let’s talk about what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next:

1. How I use AI for creator work

2. The newsletter posts that resonated the most

3. Growing from 5K to 40K YouTube subscribers

4. Staying true on sponsorships and community

5. Reflections on being a PM and a creator

How I use AI for creator work

I basically have AI open at all times to:

1. Newsletter: Voice dictate first drafts, edit newsletter posts, and make infographics.

2. Podcast: Research guests, turn raw transcripts into show notes, generate YouTube thumbnail copy, and write social posts.

I use just a small handful of AI tools to do all this:

1. For AI models, Claude is my daily driver for getting work done and Gemini is great for infographics and illustrations. I'm canceling my paid ChatGPT subscription (for now) since it doesn't stand out for me in any area.

2. For other AI tools, I use Wispr Flow and Superwhisper for voice dictation, Granola for meetings, Notion for templates, Google AI Studio for prototyping, and Replit, Cursor, and Claude Code for building websites and apps.

In 2026, I want to give my paid subscribers (upgrade here) more value with:

1. Free access to my favorite AI tools in addition to the existing 3 months free benefit for Wispr Flow and Granola.

2. A dedicated app for paid subs with my personal AI workflows for PRDs, prototyping, and more.

The newsletter posts that resonated the most

There are a lot of newsletters that share daily AI news and industry analysis. But I think what busy people really want are just:

1. Practical AI tutorials that walk step-by-step through building infographics, websites, apps, and AI products.

2. Personal takes on what’ll happen to product management, what is real vs. AI hype, and how to future proof your tech career.

In 2026, I plan to write more about these topics. Here are some upcoming posts:

1. Tutorial: Prototype-first product development with Google AI Studio

2. Personal take: What I really believe in to build great products (will be 🌶️)

I also want to showcase other AI builders. If you have a practical AI workflow that you’d like to write a guest post for, reply and let me know!

Growing from 5K to 40K YouTube subscribers

YouTube has been a hard channel to grow, but I’m still proud of hitting 40K subscribers. Here are my most popular videos:

My biggest learning from publishing 40+ episodes:

One type of content that I wish performed better is leaders sharing lessons on building AI products. I think my interviews with Ami Vora (now Head of Product for Anthropic), Josh Woodward (Gemini), and Chris Pedregal (Granola) are still criminally underwatched.

I plan to keep doing these interviews even if the views are lower. If I keep interviewing people who I genuinely want to learn from, I think the rest will follow.

In 2026, I’ll publish more videos featuring practical AI tutorials from guests and myself. Here are some upcoming episodes:

1. Google AI Studio deep dive with Logan Kilpatrick (Gemini product lead)

2. Prototyping and design deep dive with Dylan Field (Figma CEO)

My goal is to hit 100K subs in 2026 so subscribe to my YouTube if you want to support me :)

Staying true on sponsorships and community

Sponsorships

Sponsorships make up the majority of my creator earnings and I’ve learned how important is to have a high quality bar. It feels bad to promote a product to my audience that I don’t personally use and love.

In 2026, I want to pursue long-term sponsorships from a short list of companies and products that I genuinely love.

Community

At work, talking to my customer community has been critical to building good products. But I haven’t been great at building a community around my creator work.

This year, I’m proud of building two:

1. A WhatsApp group with product leaders and creators like Hilary, Nickey, Ben, Sachin, Tal, Chantal, Marc, and Adam. Being able to shoot the shit with them has been amazing.

2. My AI product community with Colin Matthews. We now have 700+ builders in there sharing AI workflows and product lessons. Subscribe to get access.

In 2026, I want to take my AI product community to the next level with more practical tips, funny memes, and real talk.

For community, size matters far less than how many people actually engage. A great community should feel like a lively DM thread, so that’s what I’ll aim for.

Reflections on being a PM and a creator

Ok this next section is quite personal, so I’m going to share it with my paid subscribers only. 🙂

Here’s some real talk about balancing both roles:

Read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of product management.

When I talk to mid-career PMs, I hear the same frustrations over and over:

1. “I’m looking for a director role but all I see are IC jobs.”

2. “I want to work for an AI company but there are very few PM roles.”

3. “I’m too tired to build at night after a day of back to back meetings.”

Meanwhile, AI-native companies like Anthropic and Cursor are hiring fewer PMs or delaying their first PM hire for as long as possible.

So what exactly is happening, and what can you do about it? Here are 8 hot takes on where I think the PM role is headed next and why I’m optimistic.

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1. There will be fewer great PM roles

I’ve interviewed 30+ founders and leaders at AI-native companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Replit. They all believe the same thing:

Here are some direct quotes from leaders:

1. “You want a relatively small set of people where almost everyone you hire is really, really good." — Dario (Anthropic’s CEO)

2. “We have <30 PMs because we want to be the model of what it looks like to build a company on top of AI.” — Nate (OpenAI’s Head of Business Products)

Unfortunately, I think this means that there will be fewer PM roles at AI-native companies. It also means that your FAANG PM job is probably not as secure as you think it is. That’s because…

2. The old way of scaling teams is dead

I worked at Meta during the ZIRP years where a typical product team had engineers supported by a PM, designer, data scientist, PMM, content strategist, and more. But the irony is that:

AI-native companies don’t want PMs who stick to their lane and think:

1. “I’ll let the PMMs market my product.”

2. “I’ll let the researchers talk to my customers.”

3. “I’m too busy with strategery™️ to dogfood.”

Instead, these companies want T-shaped builders — people with deep expertise in one area and enough breadth to contribute to many others. Ryo (Head of Design at Cursor) put it best:

My friend Ravi made this great point:

Thanks to AI (just try writing a spec with Cursor), designers and engineers now have more bandwidth to cover PM tasks like summarizing customer insights and drafting product strategy. That’s why companies are delaying hiring PMs.

In the AI era, a PM who can’t build and an engineer who can’t define requirements will both struggle. If you’re still working at a company where you’re told to “stick to your lane,” then it’s probably time for a change.

3. Building will be a baseline expectation for PMs

The more experienced I get as a PM, the less patience I have for PM theater like:

1. Spending more time documenting what you’ll ship than actually shipping.

2. Obsessing over internal docs instead of dogfooding the end user product.

3. Making decisions by committee and compromising the product along the way.

Companies and teams that can build in the morning and get user feedback by lunch will win over those still doing waterfall development.

I don’t care if you’re a PM director with 10+ years of experience. You should still learn to spin up a prototype quickly, show it to real customers, and iterate.

This isn’t just my opinion. “Fast beats right” (Claire Vo) and “execution beats strategy” (Ami Vora) are direct quotes from product leaders whom I respect. Community-led development and building rapid feedback loops are what matter.

4. Taking AI courses and certificates is NOT building

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you now that building is important. Now your first instinct might be to spend $1,000+ on an AI course to “learn to build.” Just keep this in mind:

I cringe when I see people post: “I just got my AI PM certificate from XYZ course!” This is the equivalent of putting “AI PM” on your LinkedIn:

Nobody cares that you got an AI course certificate. What hiring managers want to see is proof of work:

AI companies are explicit about this. Here’s a quote from Anthropic’s careers page:

The only credential that matters to AI-native teams is what you’ve actually built and what tangible ideas you have to improve their product.

And the only way to learn this stuff is to get your hands dirty, make mistakes, and start shipping. Watch my AI tutorials if you need an extra push.

5. The higher you climb, the less time you have to build

At this point, you may be thinking: “Look Peter, I’m just too tired after back-to-back meetings and putting my kids to bed to build.”

I hear you, I’m in the same boat. When I was young and naive, I thought “I really need to become a PM so I can finally build good products!” But here’s the irony:

Instead of building, you spend more time in reviews, stakeholder meetings, and performance calibrations. If you’re not careful, you can easily lose touch with the details and the craft of making the product.

So what’s the solution? For me, it’s being very intentional about protecting my time by:

1. Auditing recurring meetings. I ask: “Does this meeting still need to exist?”

2. Batching meetings. I try to cluster meetings so I have mornings for deep work.

3. Defaulting to async. I’ve become very good at async Slack threads.

This doesn’t always work and could backfire. But it’s a trade-off that I’ve consciously made so that I have more time to think, dogfood my product, and iterate with AI.

The funny thing is that I’ve had multiple CPOs email me after leaving their jobs asking how to vibe code. I also know several PM friends who have proactively moved from leadership roles at non-AI companies to IC roles at AI-native companies so that they can build again.

That’s because for the first time ever, ICs who use AI tools can have more leverage than people managers. Nikhyl (former Meta VP) has a great quote about this:

Don’t let your single-minded pursuit of climbing the ladder take you away from crafting the product if that’s what you actually enjoy doing.

6. Be honest about your work and life constraints

Here’s another uncomfortable truth:

Nikhyl has a great framework for thinking about different work intensities:

1. 996 (9 am - 9 pm, 6 days a week): AI startups where you’re married to work. There are no boundaries—work is priority zero, everything else comes after. These startups are incompatible with parenting young kids, caregiving, or health issues.

2. Online after hours: The norm for most PM jobs at FAANG and growth companies. You’re on Slack at 9 pm but can establish some boundaries. Intensity comes in waves (e.g., launch periods, incidents).

3. No nights and weekends: Co-workers sign off at 6 pm and there are no weekend expectations. The trade-off is usually slower growth and less cutting-edge work, but you’ll have more time to build on your own.

You have to be honest about your work and life constraints. I’ll never work at a 996 company because I want to watch my kids grow up. I do work nights and weekends sometimes because I care about shipping good products.

But those days are the exception, not the norm.

7. Aligning humans matters more than ever

I just wrote 6 points about how important it is to learn to build, but I also think that:

Aligning people is hard and remains valuable even on a small team.

AI can draft your launch plan, but it can’t walk into a meeting and resolve a deadlock between strong personalities. It can summarize user feedback, but it can’t read the room when a beta flops and you have to decide whether to delay.

The PMs who thrive will combine builder speed with influence — they can both show the future with a working app, and then bring the team along for the ride.

Think of building as a way to help you align with other people. A prototype gives people a much better sense of your product than any slide deck.

8. The most successful PMs will have that “just figure it out” energy

The PMs who thrive in this new world will have what I call “figure it out” energy — the willingness to wear multiple hats and solve problems instead of waiting for someone to teach you.

This shift is hard for big tech PMs because most of us have been trained to work within clearly defined roles and processes. We’ve learned not to “step on toes” so that stakeholders can give us good feedback during reviews. We collect FAANG credentials like infinity stones (I’m guilty of this). We’ve learned to check boxes and stack credentials our entire lives.

It’s time to wake up.

In an AI-native team, hesitation is more dangerous than stepping on toes, iteration speed matters more than perfect planning, and proof of work matters than credentials.

Being able to just figure it out is what matters.

What this means for your career

The bad news: There will likely be fewer great PM jobs.

The good news (and why I’m optimistic): The PM jobs that remain will be more fun — faster-moving, higher impact, and closer to crafting the product.

As PMs, it’s up to all of us to evolve our role toward what we actually love doing. I’ll leave you with three tangible next steps:

1. Learn to build something yourself. Start by watching my beginner tutorials to build a Chrome extension in Cursor, beautiful websites using Replit, and AI headshot and movie discovery apps with Claude Code. But don’t just watch the tutorials — build them yourself!

2. Tighten your feedback loops. Tell your team that you’re no longer doing waterfall development. Shorten the time from idea → shipped change → real-world learning to one day cycles. Reject doing more than 3 rounds of internal iteration without talking to a single customer. Practice community-led product development.

3. Be honest about your constraints. Working 996 for an AI native company comes with real sacrifices. Look for companies where you can do good work and sprint for short periods but still have time to be with your family.

The PM profession is at an inflection point. The skills that got many of us here won’t take us where we need to go.

But if you build the right skills and bring that “just figure it out” energy, you could soon be doing the most fulfilling and impactful product work of your career.

Happy Black Friday!

I hate clutter, but here are 17 products ranging from $10 to $3,000 that have genuinely made my life better.

Many of these products are on sale today and there are no affiliate links in this post. Here’s the complete list organized into 3 sections:

1. Everyday essentials

2. Family gifts

3. Health and fitness

How I research what products to buy

Before we get to the list, I just wanted to share how I research what products to buy. It’s very simple, I just search for 3 things:

1. “Wirecutter best (item).” This is my source for professional reviews.

2. “Reddit best (item).” This is my source for actual user reviews.

3. Deep research “I’m thinking of buying (item), research professional and user reviews and give me your recommendation.” This is what I do in Claude when I really want to make sure that I’m buying the best product in its category.

Now let’s move on to the list 🙂

Everyday essentials

YouTube Premium ($14) — If I could only keep one subscription, it’d be this one. Going ad-free is a no-brainer if you think about how much we all watch YouTube. Premium also comes with YouTube Music (now my default music player) and background play. I’ve cancelled Netflix multiple times but would never cancel this.

Owala FreeSip water bottle ($23) — I’ve tried dozens of water bottles and this has become my go-to bottle. I love that I can sip through the straw which is really convenient when driving. The bottle maintains temperature well, looks great, and doesn’t leak if you secure it properly. Pro tip: If you’re prone to night snacking like me, have this bottle around and just sip water instead.

Baggu shopping bags ($42) — $42 for three bags sounds expensive, but I think they’re worth it. My wife and I use them constantly for grocery shopping, library books, and carrying stuff to the car and around town. They’re sturdy enough to hold heavy loads, easy to pack into a tiny pouch, and the designs look great.

Shure MV7 USB microphone ($269) — The Blue Yeti mic that everyone buys is a scam that picks up all your background noise. Instead, get this Shure mic which sounds much better. I use it for podcasting, but you should get one even if you only do Zoom calls. I attach it to an Elgato Wave Mic arm so that I can easily move it around.

Toto washlet bidet ($324) — Imagine never having to sit on a cold toilet seat again 🙂 I think a heated bidet is genuinely life changing. At the risk of TMI (too much info), it’s also much cleaner to use a bidet than just toilet paper. I’ve already replaced two toilet seats at home with these and might replace my last one too.

TravelPro platinum elite carry on luggage ($368) — If you love to travel like me, then you know that good luggage is important. This is my favorite so far — the wheels glide so well that I can just push it and it’ll roll on its own for a long time. The handle is ergonomic and I love the easy-access pocket on top.

Breville Barista Express ($499) — This might look like a splurge purchase but if you’re a coffee lover the machine will pay for itself within a year. I love using it to make espressos, lattes, and more in the mornings. It tastes 100% better than Starbucks slop.

Family gifts

Aura digital picture frame ($139) – This is by far the best gift I’ve given my parents. I periodically upload new photos and videos of my kids to it. Whenever I visit them in Canada, they tell me how much they love it. The frame looks beautiful too.

Shutterfly family calendar ($25) – If you don’t want to splurge on a digital frame, this is a great budget option. Every year, I make these calendars for both sets of grandparents by uploading pictures through the app. The calendar is always hanging on their wall whenever I visit.

LL Bean wicked good moccasins ($89) — These are amazing slippers to wear around the home, especially during winter. My feet usually are freezing when I’m working downstairs in the mornings. With these on, I don’t feel cold at all. They’re super soft, warm, and built to last. I got one for my mom too, and she loves it. Another solid pick is this Glare up wool slipper ($100).

Lululemon ABC pants ($138) — $138 sounds insane for pants, but after wearing ABCs I can’t go back to jeans anymore. They look professional enough for meetings but feel like wearing sweatpants. If you have a family member who’s still wearing jeans buy this for them and they won’t go back.

Magformers magnet toys ($49) — The most important part of a toy is how easy it is to clean up. 😅 Unlike Play-Doh or kinetic sand (never again), these magnets stick to each other and cleanup takes seconds. My kids have played with these from ages 2 to 7 and they still love building things with them.

Health & fitness

MZOO luxury sleep eye mask ($10) — I wear this $10 mask every night and they’ve improved my sleep way more than fancy sleep pods. Just putting it on triggers sleep within 15 minutes, and it stops me from doom-scrolling before bed.

FlipBelt zipper running belt ($30) — I’m not a marathon runner, but going on 3-5 mile runs once a week (to 80s power hour music 🔥) does wonders for my mood. I used to just hold my phone while running but this belt is so much better. It sits right above my waist under my shirt so no one can see it. I also use it around town to carry my keys and wallet, much to my wife’s embarrassment.

Currex RunPro insoles ($48) — Even if you don’t run, it’s worth buying shoes and these insoles from a professional running store because they make walking more comfortable. A good running store will measure your feet and give you the right insole for your arch height. Trust me, they make a world of difference.

Legion+ plant protein powder ($50) – Getting enough protein (0.8g / lb body weight) is harder for me than actually working out. As an Asian with lactose intolerance, my stomach can’t handle whey protein. This plant protein gives me 24 grams per scoop and the apple pie flavor tastes delicious mixed with yogurt every morning.

Tonal ($3,295) — This is the most expensive item on my list and it also comes with a $59/month subscription. Sounds insane but if you’re strapped for time, this is one of the best fitness purchases you can make. I’ve had mine for five years and logged over 4 million pounds on it. Being able to just go to my garage to work out with a video coach is a game changer if you’re busy. You do have to push yourself to get results.

Wrap up

Can you believe I recommended 17 products without a single mention of “AI”?! 😅

If you found something useful here, I’d love to hear about it. And if you have your own favorite products that improved your life, please share with us in the comments below!

Today, I want to share 15 hot takes that cut through the AI hype.

I posted these takes to social and they really hit a nerve because I think they say out loud what many of us are thinking.

So let’s cover three areas where I think AI needs a reality check:

1. Cutting through the AI hype

2. Building useful AI products

3. Building AI native teams

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Cutting through the AI hype

1. The term "AI PM" has become a meaningless branding exercise. Everyone’s an “AI PM” on LinkedIn these days. But slapping “AI PM” on your resume doesn’t make you one. What matters more is showing proof of work — what did you actually ship with AI recently and does it solve a real customer problem?

2. Any AI influencer who posts “(product) is dead” should go on your block list. I’ve blocked at least a dozen engagement farmers who post nonsense like “this changes everything” or “RIP (product).” Ignore these people and follow folks who are building and sharing real lessons instead like Lee (Cursor), Kieran (Every), Matt (Replit), and Cat / Meaghan (Claude Code).

3. Retention is the real signal, not ARR. Despite billions of dollars being poured into AI, I only use a handful of AI tools regularly (see above). Good retention is what matters, and it’s incredibly rare in the AI space. Founders and investors who only chase ARR numbers while ignoring retention are in for a rude awakening.

3. Reading and understanding code matters more than ever. Despite what I want to believe, I simply cannot vibe code anything as good as a real engineer. AI can help with writing code, but understanding how software actually works remains essential. I asked my audience: "If you had to teach a busy person to become technical fast, how would you do it today?" This reply nailed it:

   

Building useful AI products

5. AI agents often aren’t the right solution. Every startup I talk to is building an AI agent. But agents are expensive (they eat tokens for breakfast) and only make sense for complex, valuable tasks. The most valuable agent tasks — coding, research, productivity — also face intense competition from top AI labs. Can you really build another AI coding agent that’s better than OpenAI and Anthropic?

   

6. Use AI to solve the boring, manual workflows instead. The best AI products aren’t behind a ✨ button. Instead, they streamline the core workflows that people already have. Where are your users manually entering data or copying and pasting between tools? That's where the opportunities are. Read my guide to help you identify the right AI use cases.

7. Consumer vibe coding isn't a sustainable business. Nobody wakes up thinking: “What new apps can I vibe code from scratch today?” That’s why the best AI coding companies (e.g., Cursor) are targeting enterprises and engineers instead. Maybe there’s an opportunity to disrupt website builders like SquareSpace.

8. Always build the simple thing first. Trying to build fancy agents and RAG systems when simple prompting works is a recipe for failure and frustration. Always do the simple thing first and don't solve problems that won't be problems soon when a better AI model comes along.

9. Shiny demos without evals are just vaporware. I’ve seen many people present flashy demos only to stumble when asked about evaluations (including some lessons I learned the hard way!). When demoing your AI product, you should have clear answers to: What user problem are you solving? What ground-truth dataset and evaluations do you have? How have you prepared for the model to fail?

10. The most important part of evals is the human part. Getting your team aligned on what the right eval criteria is and what good looks like is the foundation of all your evals. Try to avoid using off the shelf criteria like “helpfulness” and tailor your evals to measure real user problems instead.

11. Match your eval rigor to your product stage. Trying to do fancy LLM judge evals in the early days when your product is still changing is equivalent to writing a 30 page PRD before you build the product. Start with a few dozen test cases when you’re still prototyping and scale to robust evals when you’re ready to launch.

Building AI native teams

11. Rapid feedback loops are everything. In my interview with Cat (Claude Code), she shared that her best features came from launching prototypes to 1,000+ users and then actually listening to what resonates. Everyone, from engineers to designers to PMs, should feel empowered to prototype and build feedback loops.

12. Stop pretending you have a 2 year roadmap. When I asked Cat about her long-term roadmap, she said: “A year or two is a really long time. I can talk about the next few months.” The best AI teams aren’t planning for more than 6 months out. This doesn’t mean that they’re not strategic, they just know that things will change and don’t want to waste time on planning theater.

13. Stop consuming and start building. The best way to learn AI is use it to solve your own problems. When you get stuck, ask AI for help. Remember that you can just do things instead of waiting for someone to explain to you how things work.

14. Be wary of AI making you lazy. I'd like to think AI makes me smarter, but the truth is that it's also made me lazy. If I have a problem and don't have Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini available, I just think "Screw it, I'll think about this later with AI's help." Be wary of AI making you intellectually lazy.

15. Become AI native in the right order. You won’t be great at prototyping if you don’t know how to prompt well and you won’t know how to build great AI products if you don’t use AI tools natively in your own workflows. Follow the 5 steps below and check out my detailed AI learning path for more.

    

Learn to separate the signal from the noise

Let’s face it, there’s a lot of noise in the AI space.

For me, the best signal comes from talking to real AI builders (which is why I do the podcast) and working with AI to solve my own problems.

What AI takes do you wish more people would say out loud? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Today, I want to share 5 practical steps to future-proof your career in the AI era.

Recently, I came across this doom and gloom email from Fiverr's CEO:

AI may be coming for your job, but I think it can also be an incredible career accelerator if you know how to prepare.

So let’s walk through 5 trends that you can take advantage of now:

1. There will only be two jobs on a product team

2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills

3. Everyone will be a manager of AI agents

4. Agency is the only moat

5. Automate the drudgery to make work more fun

1. There will only be two jobs on a product team

Many product teams today have a few engineers supported by a PM, designer, data scientist, and maybe a few other functions.

But in the near future, I think many teams will have just two roles:

1. Generalists who can take an idea to working prototype by themselves.

2. Specialists who are in the top 5% of their function or domain.

This is exactly what leaders like Amjad (CEO of Replit) predict will happen:

In this world, you don’t want to be stuck in the middle. Instead, you want to…

2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills

A T-shaped leader has deep expertise in one area and enough breadth to contribute to many others. AI can give more depth to your T-shape skills:

For example, I’m not a researcher, designer, or engineer, but I can use:

1. Deep Research to do research in hours instead of days.

2. Figma Make to create polished prototypes despite my limited design skills.

3. Cursor to build simple apps to solve my own problems without engineers.

At the same time, I still specialize in building with the community, crafting quality products, and verticals like creator and consumer.

This combination — depth in one area with AI-enhanced breadth — will ensure that you’ll continue to be in high demand moving forward.

But where should you build depth? Well, one skill that everyone needs is…

3. Everyone will be a manager of AI agents

In the near future, everyone will manage a team of AI agents. So my hot take is that management skills will only become more important in the AI era.

I’m talking about skills like:

1. Giving specific instructions

2. Setting clear expectations

3. Providing examples of what “good” looks like

4. Editing and evaluating work

These are the exact skills that you need to become good at AI prompting and evaluations. For example, I rarely write a PRD from scratch anymore. Instead, I "manage" my AI intern to edit it based on my guidance.

Below’s a preview of the prompt that I use to do this. You can access it and my 25+ other go-to AI prompts by becoming a paid subscriber.

Speaking of management skills, you should also manage yourself to…

4. Build high agency as your moat

Nat Eliason shared a quote during our interview that has stuck with me:

In the AI era, people who can take initiative and find a way forward in ambiguous situations will thrive.

1. In a company, agency means pursuing initiatives you believe in and not taking no for an answer. For example, I ran a vibe coding session at Roblox without waiting for approval.

2. Outside of work, agency means always finding time to tinker. KC (Roblox’s Chief People Officer) is a perfect example. Despite his executive role, he makes time to build AI prototypes and share his learnings on LinkedIn.

My hope is that job titles and credentials will matter less in the AI era. Instead, we will reward people who can deliver value and just do things.

5. Automate the drudgery to make work more fun

Let’s be honest, there are many parts of a tech job that are not fun.

I’m talking about taking meeting notes, editing Google docs, writing Slack updates, and more. You should use AI tools like projects to streamline this drudgery so you can focus on the fun — getting to know your users and building great products.

The AI era rewards people who can:

• Thrive in small, autonomous teams

• Wear multiple hats comfortably

• Iterate through rapid feedback loops

So what should you do right now?

Here are five concrete actions to future-proof your career starting today:

1. Pick your lane. Commit to becoming a generalist or a specialist. The middle is disappearing fast.

2. Use AI to expand your T-shape skills. Expand the depth of your horizontal skills using AI as your co-pilot.

3. Learn to manage AI agents. Learn to give AI clear instructions with examples and write effective AI evaluations.

4. Start something without permission. Solve a problem at work nobody asked you to fix or launch a side project.

5. Automate the drudgery. List the three most tedious parts of your job and use AI tools to streamline them this week.

AI is changing employment fast, but there’s no need to panic. Instead, take the steps above to position yourself ahead of the curve.

This Sunday, I’ll share a new interview with Claire Vo (CPO LaunchDarkly) that walks through how she follows many of the steps above. See you then!

Today, I want to share my 40 best tips for visiting Japan.

After three trips in the past decade, I’ve fallen in love with Japanese culture, food, and their dedication to quality and craft.

I think every product builder should visit the country at least once. Many people have asked me for recommendations, so let’s dive into how to prepare, what’s worth your time, and where to find meals that you’ll remember forever.

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Preparing for your trip

Japan is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world, so you need to prepare ahead of time to get the most out of your trip.

1. Pick the right season. Avoid New Year's, Golden Week, and summer when crowds and humidity are unbearable. Instead, visit during Spring (cherry blossoms), Autumn (stunning foliage), or Winter (fewer tourists).

2. Book everything early. The best hotels, restaurants, and attractions are booked months in advance. So make reservations at least 3 months ahead, especially for popular spots like the Ghibli Museum. See my city guides below for specifics.

3. Set up a Suica card. If you have an iPhone, add a Suica card to your wallet and load up $50-100 before your trip. Suica lets you use the subway and buy convenience store snacks with just a tap of your phone.

4. Bring cash and a coin pouch. Bring at least 15,000 yen ($100) in cash and a small coin pouch to carry loose change. Japan still runs on cash in many places.

5. Leave room in your luggage. Japan's souvenirs and snacks are truly best-in-class. Leave room in your luggage or bring an expandable bag so that you can stock up.

Tips during your trip

Visiting Japan can be stressful, but I’ve found that these small adjustments can make a huge difference:

6. Pick up pocket WiFi / eSIM at the airport. Reserve a pocket WiFi or eSIM before your trip to pick up at the airport. I prefer pocket WiFi on family trips since it supports multiple devices.

7. Buy bullet train tickets at the airport. When you land, visit the JR train airport kiosk and buy all your Shinkansen tickets. Keep these paper tickets safe—you'll often need to insert and retrieve multiple tickets at train stations.

8. Avoid the subway during rush hour. Don’t use the subways between 8-9 am and 5-7 pm, especially if traveling with children or luggage.

9. Beat the crowds by visiting attractions early. Many popular attractions in Japan become unbearably crowded by midday. Arrive around 9 am to enjoy a more peaceful visit.

10. Use luggage forwarding. Yamato's service is a game-changer when traveling between cities. Your hotel can send luggage to your next destination overnight or to the airport for just $10-15 per suitcase, freeing you to travel light.

Tokyo

Tokyo stretches endlessly in every direction—even from the highest observation deck, there's no visible end to this mega-city. Here’s what I think is worth visiting:

Worth it

11. Senso-ji temple. Arrive at Tokyo’s most popular temple by 9 am to experience its magic without the crushing crowds. Then take a walk to…

12. Tokyo skytree tower and mall. The tallest observation deck in Tokyo sits above an excellent mall. Don't miss the 2nd floor for Japanese snacks, the Ghibli store for souvenirs, and my favorite sushi restaurant (see below).

13. Ghibli Museum. A bit out of the way, but worth it to see how some of the best animated movies came to life. Book tickets at least 2-3 months ahead.

14. Japanese parks. Tokyo's parks are beautiful, especially during Cherry blossom season. I particularly love Ueno Park and Shinjuku Gardens.

15. Harajuku. I like strolling through this area to see all the crazy outfits Japanese youth love wearing.

16. Shinjuku. Tokyo’s shopping mecca. Check out Tokyo Hands for souvenirs, Uniqlo’s flagship store for clothing, and Thermae-Yu for a great public bath.

17. Teamlabs Planets. A highly immersive digital art museum that features flowing water and hanging gardens. Book tickets at least a month ahead.

Overrated

17. Tokyo DisneySea and Disneyland. While DisneySea is unique, I think the lines are far too long to make this worthwhile if you’ve been to Disney before in the US.

18. Teamlabs Borderless. Although larger than Planets, I found Borderless more like an art museum than an immersive experience.

Best meal

19. Kaiten Sushi in Skytree mall. I’ve visited Tokyo’s Michelin restaurants, but this Hokkaido chain was the most memorable. It delivers incredibly fresh sushi at an unbeatable price (we had 45 plates for just $125). Show up 30 min before opening.

Kyoto

Kyoto has Japan's most spectacular temples, but is also overwhelmed with tourists. Follow the tips below to avoid the crowds.

Worth it

20. Kiyomizu. Book a kimono/yukata experience through Klook, then walk to Kiyomizu temple at sunset while taking plenty of pictures.

21. Fushimi Inari. This famous temple has 1000s of torii gates. It's open 24/7, so go early in the morning to take great photos and avoid crowds.

22. Ryoan-ji and Kodaiji. Ryoan-ji has an awesome zen garden, and Kodaiji's small admission fee ensures smaller crowds. Both offer spiritual experiences.

23. Arashiyama Monkey Park. A short uphill trek rewards you with a view and delightful interactions with monkeys (my kids loved this). Buy some Kyoto tea leaf cookies near the bus stop on your way back.

24. Philosopher's path. This stone walkway alongside a peaceful canal offers a great stroll away from the crowded temples, especially during cherry blossom season.

Overrated

25. Kinkaku-ji. Although beautiful at sunset, the crowds are so insane at this temple that you’ll feel like you're waiting in line at Disneyland.

Best meal

26. Kani Dōraku. This crab restaurant near Yasaka temple isn’t cheap, but I loved how thoughtful and delicious the dishes were. Book ahead of time.

Osaka

Osaka is a great place to enjoy delicious street food and shop till you drop.

Worth it

27. Osaka Castle. I loved the museum inside this castle and the beautiful grounds around it. It references a famous battle that’s also alluded to in Shogun.

28. Kuromon Ichiba Market. Known as "Osaka's Kitchen," this market is perfect for sampling local specialties like takoyaki, okonomiyaki, and fresh seafood.

29. Osaka Aquarium. One of the best aquariums in the world features whale sharks, dolphins, and cute seals. Highly recommended if you’re traveling with kids.

30. Namba side streets. Tiny bars and restaurants create a great space to interact with locals and tourists.

31. Umeda shopping. Umeda is where Osaka locals go to shop and eat. I particularly loved the new Umeda Green Place.

Overrated

32. Dotonbori. This is like Times Square in Japan — worth a single walk-through but otherwise way too crowded with too many tourist trap restaurants.

Best meal

34. Yakiniku Ushigoro. The best beef you'll have in your life at a reasonable price too. Make a reservation early. You can also find this chain in Tokyo.

Other cities and places worth visiting

As I've gotten older, I've come to prefer Japan's smaller towns over the frenetic energy of its megacities. Below are some of my favorite places:

35. Nara. Home to Tōdai-ji temple and thousands of deer that’ll bow to you for biscuits. Nara is a unique town just a short train ride from Osaka or Kyoto.

36. Himeji. Japan’s most spectacular “white heron” castle is particularly stunning during cherry blossom season. Worth an hour's train ride from Osaka or Kyoto.

37. Hiroshima and Miyajima. Hiroshima's peace museum is a sobering experience, while nearby Miyajima features a "floating" torii gate and deer. Stay overnight.

38. Kanazawa. This seaside gem boasts Kenroku-en, one of Japan’s best gardens. I also loved the geish district and the incredibly fresh seafood in Omicho market.

39. Nagoya. Home to the newer Ghibli Park and Nabana no Sato's spectacular winter illuminations. Make sure you reserve both months ahead of time.

40. Hakone. A few hours from Tokyo, Hakone offers a great sightseeing loop and great natural onsens (I loved Tenzen). Book a ryokan to stay overnight.

Final Thoughts

After three trips to Japan, I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

It’s the complete package of great attractions, delicious food, and polite people. Most importantly, Japan’s obsession with craft touches everything from snacks to clean streets to cute mascots.

I hope these tips help you experience Japan's magic for yourself. For more about Japan, check out my very 1st post in this newsletter. Let me know if you have any great tips to share in the comments!

Today, I want to share 30 lessons from 30 leaders from my Behind the Craft podcast.

Speaking of the podcast, I have a great line-up of guests coming up, including:

• Product leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and YouTube

• Founders of top AI apps like Granola, Suno, and more

The next few episodes will focus on crafting great AI products and becoming an AI-native product leader. All my interviews are 100% free, so if you want to support me, please consider subscribing to my podcast on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple.

Subscribe to Get New Episodes Weekly

Now, let’s dive into the 30 bite-sized lessons from 30+ hours of conversations.

A quick favor…please respond to the poll below. I’m cooking something good :)

12 lessons on crafting great products

1. Katie Dill (Chief Design Officer, Stripe): It's just way too easy to ship something that's just “good enough” — we've got to get it out fast, we don't have the resources, we'll come back to it later. It's these micro-decisions every day that will make your product mediocre. So you must hold steadfast to "it's not good enough yet." Let's put another day into it. Let’s have the courage to stop the ship.

2. Kaz Nejatian (COO Shopify): Many people misunderstand how great products are built. They think a great product comes from a strategy document, but that’s untrue. Great products are built through continuous tinkering and adjustments. Every product that we love has been built this way.

3. Aravind Srinivas (CEO Perplexity): We don't do product review meetings. My mentality is: Why wait for a review meeting? Just give me the link to try the product so I can give feedback. Then, I'll check again in a few days. This is much faster than spending half a week preparing for a meeting with me.

4. Fareed Mosavat (ex-Slack): Don’t confuse the work behind the work with the actual work. The actual work is understanding customer problems, identifying solutions, and executing. The work behind the work includes all the intermediate steps — like product briefs, internal meetings, and product reviews. As a leader, you must recognize when this work behind the work takes over.

5. Yuhki Yamashita (CPO Figma): I think PMs who value craft have:

   1. Attention to detail. They highlight small details that users care about.

   2. Excitement for great experiences. They care about UX outside of metrics.

   3. Emphasis on the user’s POV. They always put themselves in the user’s shoes.

6. Alex Cornell (Design Director, Meta AI): Designers should resist being too clever. If you get too clever, your interface will be beautiful but hard for users to understand. If I share flashy work, other designers would be stoked by it. But what users think matters and users usually prefer the familiar.

7. Cem Kansu (CPO, Duolingo): We take pride in using the term "unhinged" positively. When someone at Duolingo says a change is unhinged, the team did a good job. It's part of our product philosophy. Breaking sanitized product norms adds character.

   

8. Mihika Kapoor (Figma): If you’re building 0-1, be ready for emotional whiplash. It's natural to think that once you hit a high, the next step will be up and to the right. But it rarely is. Every high was immediately followed by a realization that it wasn't as good as I thought. Being persistent is key.

9. Lee Robinson (Vercel): The battle is won in the trenches of daily iterations. It could be a two-paragraph docs change because a dev didn’t get something. It could be one small UX issue with an input or button placement. For every developer you talk to, a hundred more don't say anything.

10. Jon Lax (ex-Meta VP Design): First, make something necessary and useful. Once that’s clear, then work on making it beautiful. Designers often get this backward. I’ve spent a lot of time polishing a product's final 10%, only to discover that it had no discernible effect on user satisfaction. Remember that if your product isn’t in the market, then you aren’t learning.

11. Dan Siroker (CEO Limitless): You can only have two of three things: scope, quality, and speed. My advice is to pick quality and speed over scope every time. Tech people want to build all kinds of cool features that don’t matter. Instead, start by solving a narrow use case well and then expand.

12. Lane Shackleton (CPO Coda): Shipping is often the fastest learning method.

    We work hard to create a great culture for makers. Our default orientation is: “That seems like an interesting approach. How can we see how it feels? What's the best way to prototype that?”

6 lessons on becoming an AI-native product leader

1. Claire Vo (CPO, LaunchDarkly): AI lets anyone go from idea to prototype without strong technical skills. You could then put that prototype in front of customers and get feedback. So, candidly, I think PMs will be forced to build for customers directly. I’d love to see the lines between product, design, and engineering blur more so everyone can contribute to crafting the product.

2. Marily Nika (AI product lead, Google): You've already lost if a formal product review is the first time leadership sees your AI product. Instead, you must seek constant buy-in by communicating often, inviting people to test the product early, and ensuring that leadership understands AI’s non-deterministic nature.

3. Brian Balfour (CEO of Reforge): AI products have a novelty effect that captures initial attention. But the big question is: “How fast can you improve retention before the novelty wears off?” I’ve seen data showing that AI products retain at a much worse rate than non-AI products.

4. Tomer Cohen (CPO LinkedIn): Think fast and slow about the objective of your algorithm. You think fast by starting with your intuition. You think slowly by asking, “What could go wrong?” What could happen if you're successful in making your metric go up? There could be unintentional consequences, like spammers, bad actors, and filter bubbles.

5. Miqdad Jaffer (OpenAI): To address AI's non-deterministic nature, define clear product principles early. For example, the “let the merchant decide” principle led us to design a UX where merchants could review AI suggestions. We don’t want AI to sell stuff without the merchant's knowledge.

6. Dan Shipper (CEO Every): We're moving from a world where much IC work will become work where we’re managing AI models. If the metaphor for previous programming work was a sculptor, where every little chip is something you do, we're moving from that to thinking more like a gardener. You create the conditions for the plant to grow by adjusting the soil, etc.

12 lessons on advancing your product career

1. Ethan Evans (retired VP Amazon): The magic loop to advance your career:

   1. Do your job well. Check-in regularly with your managers and peers to verify that you’re doing your current job well.

   2. Ask your manager how you can help them. Managers love getting asked this question and always have something they need help with.

   3. Do what they ask. Complete the task and update your manager along the way. Repeat steps 2-3 a few times to build trust.

   4. Ask how you can help in a way that aligns with your goals. This could include increasing your scope, getting promoted, or joining a new team.

   5. Do what they ask and repeat the loop from step 4.

2. Shishir Mehrotra (CEO Grammarly): Be selfless, people can spot selfishness from a mile away. They can tell if you're solving a problem or seeking credit. When you identify a problem outside your control, you must help others see why it matters. If they suspect an ulterior motive, they won’t listen to you.

3. Jiaona Zhang (CEO LinkTree): You must understand your career like a product. When building a product, you want to deeply understand who you're building for. What do they want? What are their pain points? You need to think about your career the same way. Too often, people just follow what others do or check boxes that seem "right." That’s leading so many PMs to burn out or want a change.

4. Sharmeen Chapp (Product at Stripe): There's a misconception that empathy and holding a high bar are mutually exclusive, but I don't believe that's true. You can do both. Giving tough feedback is kinder in the long run because it helps others grow. Just ensure your feedback is actionable so people know how to improve.

5. Satish Mummareddy (ex-Meta): Be someone that leaders want to sponsor by solving complex problems for them. When you're working on a leader's critical issues, they naturally invest time in the work and, by extension, in you. When you join a new team, you typically start with the least desirable projects. The key is to hit a high bar, even on seemingly small tasks, to earn the right to get priority work.

6. Scott Belsky (CPO Adobe): Empathy needs to come before vision. Empathy for the customer and their problem should drive you. You must talk to customers, watch them go about their day, and ask why they’re struggling with something to gain insight into crafting a compelling vision.

   

7. Justin Welsh (solopreneur): You should spend time on the 20% of things that maximize 80% of your intended outcome. Here’s how I do it:

   1. Pick an intended outcome. Let's say it's to grow business revenue.

   2. List every task you complete during the week. This could include writing, meetings, administrative work, and other activities.

   3. Write the impact and hours for each task. Score each task from 1-10 based on how it helps your goal.

   4. Calculate the ROI. Divide each task's impact score by the hours it takes. Sort all tasks by this ratio to see what's worth your time.

   5. Eliminate, simplify, automate, and delegate (ESAD). Eliminate unimportant tasks and simplify complex ones. Then, automate or delegate.

8. Sanchan Saxena (VP Atlassian): Success is 80% luck and 20% skills. The people who are telling you otherwise are trying to sell you something. You get lucky by imagining the best-case outcome. Don't prepare for failure. Prepare for success. Try it, and you’ll see how it changes how you operate, show up at work, and what you aim for. That’s life advice, not just product management advice.

9. Chris Jones (SVPG): You must keep your network up. A good network will offer advice, mentorship, and job opportunities in good and bad times. It doesn’t have to have a big agenda, but keeping your network alive is important. That way, when there’s a downturn, you can be at the top of your mind for your network just like others are at the top of your mind.

10. Sachin Rekhi (founder and ex-LinkedIn): I got into product to talk to customers and design features. Instead, I rarely talked to customers directly - I had teams of PMs for that. While I owned high-level vision, the day-to-day work I loved about the products had disappeared. I was in my zone of excellence - work I was good at but found draining. I realized continuing on this path would take me further from the parts of the product I loved.

11. Elena Verna (Growth Dropbox): Imposter syndrome is a superpower. If you feel imposter syndrome, use it to make sure you know your shit before you open your mouth. When you feel imposter syndrome, you learn and do something outside your comfort zone. Lean into it because it could take you to the next level.

12. Deb Liu (CEO Ancestry): I want all parents to realize this is their most important job. You're replaceable at work, but you're not at home. Don't wait for "someday" to do important things with your family.

Wrap up

Hosting the Behind the Craft podcast takes time and effort, but I love doing it to:

1. Learn from smart people every week.

2. Share my learnings with all of you.

Thank you for watching. Let me know if you have suggestions for guests I should interview next.

Subscribe to Get New Episodes Weekly

Today, I want to share 7 tax strategies to help you keep more of what you earn.

Like many of you, I’d much rather focus on building great products than doing my taxes. But that has led to costly mistakes like missing retirement contributions and overlooking business deductions. The truth is:

Taking 15 minutes to learn these tactics could save you thousands of dollars.

That’s why I decided to write this guide with Carry, my favorite platform for business owners and tech professionals to grow their wealth. Note that this isn't financial advice — consult a tax professional before taking action.

Grow Your Net Worth with Carry

1. Understand your stock options and RSUs

If you’re in tech, stock options and RSUs are likely a big part of your total compensation. Let’s break down the three types first:

1. RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) are shares taxed as income when they vest. Here’s what many people miss — your company typically only withholds 22% of your RSU income for taxes, but you likely owe 35-40%. So consider pre-paying your taxes in January, increasing your W2 withholding, or prepping a large bill in April.

2. NSOs (non-qualified stock options) are coupons that let you buy company stock at a discount. Let's say you get NSOs with a $10 strike price. If the stock rises to $30 and you exercise, you'll pay income tax on the $20 spread. Like RSUs, NSOs are taxed as regular income.

3. ISOs (incentive stock options) offer the best tax advantages if you plan carefully. Hold them for a year after exercise and 2 years after the grant date to qualify for the 20% long-term capital gains rate instead of your income tax rate. Watch out for Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) if the spread is large.

Given the above, here’s how you can manage your equity:

1. For RSUs, decide your strategy for each vest. Many employees sell some or all of their RSUs to reduce financial dependency on their company stock.

2. For options, consider holding your ISOs longer than your NSOs. There's no tax benefit to holding NSOs, but ISOs can qualify for that 20% long-term tax rate.

3. Don’t forget the 90-day ISO rule if you leave your company. You only have 90 days to exercise your ISOs before they convert to NSOs after you leave.

4. Always participate in your employer's stock purchase plan (ESPP). It's usually a 15% discount on company stock that you can sell immediately to realize the gains. Note that every ESPP plan is different so do your research before taking action.

Here’s a calculator from Carry to calculate your equity and make informed decisions.

2. Calculate the upside for Traditional vs. Roth

When you have mortgage and childcare payments to make, retirement can feel like a distant problem. But recognize that:

Every dollar in your 401(k) reduces your tax burden long-term.

Let’s break down your two main 401(k) options:

1. Traditional (pre-tax) 401(k) lets you contribute tax-free now and pay taxes on withdrawal. Maxing out at $23K saves you $8K in taxes at the 35% tax bracket.

2. Roth 401(k) taxes you on contributions but offers tax-free withdrawals in retirement. Think of it as paying taxes on the seed instead of the harvest.

Given the above, here’s how you can manage your retirement accounts:

1. Get your employer's full match first. For example, if your company matches 50% of your 401(k) contributions up to 6% of your salary, that's an immediate 50% return. This should be your top priority because it’s free money.

2. Calculate your upside with Traditional vs. Roth. Traditional accounts benefit high-income earners who expect lower retirement tax rates, while Roth accounts favor those in lower tax brackets or early careers due to tax-free growth. Use a Traditional vs. Roth calculator to estimate the upside of each.

3. Consider a Backdoor Roth IRA. The IRS locks out married couples making $240K+ from a Roth IRA. But you can research using a Backdoor Roth IRA or a Mega Backdoor Roth to get around this.

3. Consider a Solo 401(k) for your side hustle

A Solo 401(k) can be a powerful tax tool if you have a profitable side business beyond your day job. Benefits include:

1. Contribute up to $69,000 if you’re under 50. You can reduce your taxable income by deducting this amount.

2. Choose between traditional and Roth solo accounts. You can pick either one depending on your goals above.

3. Investment freedom. You can invest in almost any asset class, including alternative assets like startups, real estate, and private equity.

The only catch is the $23K employee contribution limit is shared between all your 401(k) plans. But you can still make "employer" contributions up to 25% of your business profit, plus optional after-tax contributions up to 100% of your profit.

So, if you have extra money to stash away, contributing to two 401(k) plans can increase your tax-advantaged savings.

4. Maximize tax savings from your side business

Running a side business opens up a world of tax deductions. Here are a few to pursue:

Read more

Have you ever caught yourself thinking:

“If only I can get into this [company/role/school], then I can do great work.”

I spent most of my life stuck in this mindset. But I’ve come to realize that you don’t need anyone’s permission to do your best work. So let’s talk about:

1. Why chasing credentials is ultimately a dead-end

2. How to land your dream job with no credentials

3. How to build a business that skips the gatekeepers

4. How to raise kids to seek the permissionless path

I wrote this with Jeston Lu, a 19-year-old exploring his own path. Give him a follow 🙂

Why chasing credentials is ultimately a dead-end

I’ve spent alot of time chasing credentials:

• Degrees from Brown and MIT

• Jobs at Meta, Reddit, Amazon, and other leading tech companies

• Countless hours spent on getting good grades and prepping for interviews

Don’t get me wrong — fancy credentials can open doors. But chasing them blindly will ultimately lead to an unfulfilling career because:

1. You stop following your curiosity. I wasted years in consulting because that's what the other "smart" kids wanted in college. I wish I had spent that time chasing my real interests instead.

2. You don’t build real skills. Getting perfect grades and memorizing PM interview frameworks takes time away from developing real skills like building, selling, and writing.

So, how do you land your dream job and build a business without permission? Let’s cover some tactical tips and real examples next.

How to land your dream job with no credentials

If you don’t have brand name credentials, it’s easy to get your job application filtered out by resume software and recruiters. The solution:

Reach out to the hiring manager directly with undeniable value.

Let me show you three people who did exactly that:

1. How Jay became Head of Growth at 18 years old

Jay Yang is a 19-year-old who worked for two successful founders before college.

He landed his first job by emailing Tyler Denk, founder of the fast-growing newsletter platform Beehiiv. Here’s the exact cold email that he used to land his job. Note how he makes a convincing argument for Tyler to hire him in just three bullets:

1. Relevant experience: “I’ve grown my brand to 50K followers…”

2. Trusted referral: “Abhi Shah (previous intern) thinks I’m a perfect fit…”

3. Genuine interest: “Beehiiv is my top choice…”

For his next move, Jay went even bigger. He made a full deck showing Noah Kagan, CEO of App Sumo how to grow his newsletter:

The result? Noah hired him over candidates with "better" credentials. Now, Jay runs his own $10K+/month business.

2. How Akshar skipped the resume to reach Shopify’s CEO

Shopify is notoriously hard to get into — their hiring rate is as low as 0.3%.

But Akshar, a Waterloo undergrad, found a way to reach Shopify’s CEO directly. He built an app helping students find study spots on campus and shared it on X/Twitter.

His post went viral and got the attention of Tobi (Shopify’s CEO). From Akshar:

I followed up with Akshar over e-mail and confirmed he got the job!

3. Shishir went from idea to YouTube CPO

Shishir Mehrotra is the CEO of Coda and ex-CPO of YouTube (see our interview). But 15 years ago, he used the same strategy to join YouTube’s early product team:

The truth is that hiring managers and senior leaders rarely have time to “grab coffee” or “have a quick call” with strangers. Instead:

I've sent detailed product feedback to folks like Notion's CEO and LinkedIn's CPO. They always respond with genuine appreciation. As you can imagine, this is also a great way to build relationships and get job opportunities.

How to build a great business without permission

Naval has a great quote that changed how I think about careers:

AI makes this "army of robots” more accessible than ever. So, instead of seeking permission from admission officers, recruiters, and even hiring managers — why not solve real problems for real customers?

Want some inspiration? Check out my interviews with people who built great businesses in a permissionless way:

1. How I Built an $8M Business with 0 Employees | Justin Welsh

2. How I Built a 7-Figure Business in <1 Year with AI | Ben Tossell

3. The Least Risky Way to Start Your Business This Weekend | Noah Kagan

How to raise kids to seek the permissionless path

Living in the Bay Area, it seems like:

As a result, they pack their kid's schedules full of after-school programs and weekend activities. I want to teach my kids to think independently and pursue their curiosity instead. Here's the advice I’m giving my kids:

1. Try many activities to find what fires you up.

2. Follow your curiosity (be your own best teacher)

3. Build something valuable for real customers

4. Learn how to deal with failure.

5. Keep showing up (consistency compounds)

I'll even do their homework if it allows them to explore what matters. 🙂

Stop asking for permission

I share this advice probably once a week with students and folks trying to transition to product management:

So stop asking to have a call, pick someone’s brain, and grab coffee. Stop chasing the same schools and jobs that everyone else is chasing. Stop being proud of “ex-(company)” on your LinkedIn.

The only people you should seek permission from are real customers who want to pay you to solve their problems. This path isn’t easy, but it’ll make work feel like play and help you build real skills, relationships, and confidence that nobody can take away from you. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Today, I want to share some data on the PM job market as we close out 2024.

PM hiring has been hit hard, but there are signs of hope.

I partnered with Hakeem from Levels.fyi (the #1 jobs and salary database) to answer:

1. Are companies hiring fewer PMs overall?

2. Which PM levels are in demand (and which aren’t)?

3. How is hiring trending at Meta and Google?

4. What companies are paying PMs the most?

This is exclusive offer and salary data you won’t find anywhere else. Let’s dive in.

This free post is brought to you by…Product Faculty

Miqdad Jaffer (product lead at OpenAI) is teaching another cohort of his popular AI PM course on November 9. I took the course earlier this year and learned alot about building AI products with real hands-on experience with OpenAI APIs.

Get $250 Off the #1 AI PM Course

Are companies hiring fewer PMs overall?

As expected, new PM offers have been trending downwards since late 2022, but there’s been an uptick in Q3 2024.

Here are the top 30 companies by new PM offers for October 2023 to 2024 vs. October 2022 to 2023:

Here are a few trends to call out:

1. Meta slowed down PM hiring significantly (-48%) during this period.

2. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google remain the top 3 companies for new PM offers. Amazon hired fewer PMs, while Microsoft and Google hired slightly more.

3. ByteDance jumped from #23 to #8 and almost doubled their PM hiring despite facing legislation looking to ban TikTok in the US.

4. Apple, Tesla, LinkedIn, Disney, and Goldman Sachs are picking up PM hiring.

5. X (Twitter) dropped off the map (I believe there are less than 5 PMs left at X).

Which PM levels are in demand (and which aren’t)?

Here’s the distribution of new PM offers normalized to Meta’s PM leveling system for 2023-2024 vs. 2022-2023:

The most noticeable change is a rise in senior PM offers (L5) and a decrease in principal and group PM offers (L6).

Unfortunately, we can’t easily separate principal PM from group PM offers in the data. But a quick search on LinkedIn shows <100 group PM vs. ~800 principal PM job openings. So, my gut is that group PMs and directors (to a lesser extent) are being hit hard as companies trim middle management.

To see how Meta’s levels compare to other companies, check out the Levels.fyi leveling ladder.

Meta: Fewer PMs, conservative new offers, and a meteoric increase in stock price

Let’s do a deep dive on PM hiring at Meta. As you can see in the chart below, Meta hired 50% fewer PMs across all levels year over year:

This is unsurprising, as Zuck started the company’s “year of efficiency” in 2023 before making the changes permanent. Meta’s new offer total compensation (TC) has also remained relatively flat year over year:

Total compensation for PMs who joined Meta a few years ago is much better. Meta’s stock grew from ~$100 in late 2022 to ~$550 today. The chart below takes Levels.fyi’s new offer and existing employee data (including stock growth) to compare the TCs:

As you can see, Meta employees who joined a few years ago are making significantly more. I know friends making $3M TC as an L7 due to stock appreciation.

Google: Hiring more mid-level PMs and paying principal and group PMs more

Unlike Meta, Google increased PM hiring year over year at the PM2 and senior PM levels and slightly reduced hiring at the group/principal and director levels:

Despite hiring fewer group/principal PMs, Google seems to have significantly increased TC for this level. However, Google's new offer TC is below Meta across all levels.

ByteDance: All in on growth

ByteDance (TikTok’s parent company) grew PM hiring by an incredible 118%, mostly at the mid to senior levels:

It’s also giving these PMs decent TC packages:

The TikTok ban doesn't seem to affect ByteDance’s PM hiring spree.

What companies are paying PMs the most?

FAANG companies don’t necessarily offer the highest TC packages for PMs. Here are the top 5 companies by median PM total compensation over the past year: 

Companies like Roblox, Dropbox, Databricks, Coinbase, and even Snap could pay more for new PM offers than Google. So, if you’re looking for a PM job, cast a wider net instead of just recruiting for FAANG.

Wrap up

Here’s what this data means if you’re in the market for a new PM job:

1. Look beyond FAANG. Companies like Roblox, Dropbox, and Databricks often pay more than Google for new PM offers.

2. Don’t just try to be a PM manager. Group PM roles are being cut more than other levels as companies trim middle management. Consider principal PM roles instead, which have 8x more openings.

3. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google remain the mainstays in PM hiring, while Meta has greatly cut hiring.

Thank you to Hakeem and the content team at Levels.fyi, for working with me on this post. If you want to better understand how to benchmark your company salaries, take a look at the benchmarking tool or reach out to the team at hello@levels.fyi.

Let me know what you think about all this data in the comments!

Today, I want to share my detailed takeaways after attending the Lenny & Friends product summit.

The summit was packed with insights and wildly exceeded my expectations.

It was amazing to see 1,000+ product leaders gathered in one place and to meet some of you. Lenny himself is an inspiration to me — he is very humble and has always taken the time to give me advice despite becoming a PM cult leader 🙂.

For the rest of this post, I’ll share my detailed notes from the 7 sessions I attended:

1. AI killed traditional product management. Now what? | Claire Vo, LaunchDarkly

2. Simplify to win | Ami Vora, Faire

3. How to do product reviews right by doing it wrong | Yuhki and Mihika, Figma

4. Questions every PM should ask themselves | Shreyas Doshi

5. Essential insights for making products people love | Scott Belsky, Adobe

6. Crafting a compelling product vision | Ebi Atawodi, YouTube

7. Incorporating AI into your work | Kevin and Mike, OpenAI and Anthropic

Lenny will also be uploading the recordings to his YouTube channel in the coming weeks. Let’s dive into my notes below.

AI killed traditional product management. Now what? | Claire Vo, LaunchDarkly

Claire kicked things off with a bold assertion:

With AI, product work will take less time, less thought, and maybe fewer PMs.

She shared a great slide on tasks that you should be using AI to automate, including:

• Drafting documents and updates

• Creating meeting agendas and notes

• Doing interview prep and consolidating candidate feedback

• Writing user stories and product copy

• Coming up with goals and OKRs

Claire closed with this 3-step plan to become an AI-first product manager:

1. Use AI to automate the boring parts of the PM job to make time for creativity.

2. Acquire new skills like AI prompt engineering and rapid prototyping.

3. Multiply your impact by teaching teams how to harness AI internally.

Here are some great quotes from Claire:

Simplify to win | Ami Vora, Faire

Ami is one of my favorite product leaders, and her core lesson is to:

Have a maniacal focus on simplicity because it’s the ultimate competitive advantage.

Ami led WhatsApp to 2B users and 100B messages daily by focusing the team on a single north star: "Did my messages and calls go through, for free, every single time?" Every decision led to nailing this core use case to make the product indispensable to users worldwide.

To simplify, Ami suggests answering 3 questions:

1. What should I build? Focus on what makes your product indispensable. Being flashy and fun are just nice-to-haves.

2. How should I build? Make your product intuitive and use patterns that users are already familiar with.

3. How to tell a story? Understand what stories users are already telling. Think exposition, rising action, climax, and denouement.

Finally, I love this quote from Ami:

How to do product reviews right by doing it wrong | Yuhki and Mihika, Figma

Yuhki and Mihika flipped the script on how we think about product reviews. Their controversial point of view is that:

Product reviews aren’t for making decisions — they’re for winning trust.

If you think about it, most decisions are made daily with your team and users, so reviews are about building executive confidence to let you run with it. Yuhki and Mihika shared some great advice on how to make reviews work for you:

• Build up context first → ruin the punch line. Execs are impatient and easily distracted, so start with your actual recommendation.

• Cover all your bases → make a meme. “Flides” instead of Figma Slides became a meme, and 3.5M making slides in Figma was a focal point.

• Circle back if you’re unsure → share your gut. Leaders don’t like “we’ll circle back later,” so don’t be afraid to share your gut.

• Make a bold pitch → But also be your biggest skeptic. Talk to users and show the option space. Pre-empt the spicy questions by bringing them up yourself.

Watch my Mihika interview and get the slides from this session for more.

Questions every PM should ask themselves | Shreyas Doshi

Shreyas shared four questions that he wishes he asked himself earlier in his career:

Read more

Today, I want to share a written interview with Katie Dill, Stripe’s Head of Design.

Stripe is a company that’s widely known for its focus on craft and quality and Katie is one of the most influential design leaders in tech. Previously, she was the Head of Design at Airbnb and Lyft. 

Katie and I had a great chat about:

1. Defining what craft and quality means

2. Should a product be useful first and then beautiful?

3. Stripe’s rituals to level up product quality

4. Keeping quality a priority as companies scale

This interview is a must-read if you’re a designer, PM, or builder who cares about craft. Let’s dive in.

Defining what craft and quality means

Welcome, Katie! To start, how would you define craft and quality?

Craft is about the how - the thinking, work, and mastery that goes into creating something. Quality is often the output of that process.

For example, imagine a chair with great details that’s uncomfortable to sit in. Would you say that's a quality chair? It might have nailed the aesthetics, but you can't spend more than three minutes sitting in it.

To me, that’s a well-crafted chair but not high quality.

Many people think quality is just the aesthetics or how beautiful the product is, but I think you have a much broader definition than that.

Well, first, aesthetics do matter and should not be shortchanged. Some people think aesthetics are just surface level, but I think aesthetics can also make a product feel more useful and compelling.

We've seen this in our work. When we upgraded the aesthetics and content of an email with better typography, layout, and imagery, it increased product conversion by 20%.

But quality is obviously not just the aesthetics. I think there are three levels:

1. Does it have utility? Going back to a chair, can I sit in it? That's paramount.

2. Is it usable? If the chair is not comfortable, then I can't make use of it.

3. Is it beautiful? Is it well executed in the details such that it's enjoyable?

Our work is consequential — our users are moving money around the planet. If we don't get the details right, it impacts our users' ability to achieve their goals and provide for their customers.

Should utility come before beauty?

I’ve interviewed designers who think: “Let’s make the product useful first, then let’s make it beautiful later.” What’s your perspective on this?

There's some truth to that. If you only have beauty without utility, you might delight a customer briefly, but they’ll inevitably churn. Customers have many options and are too busy to be distracted by things that don’t add value.

But I also think some folks focus too far on just utility. 

Beauty can attract users to your product and motivate them to try it earnestly. If users have to jump through hoops to get the utility, they might never reach the magic moment. So ask yourself these questions:

1. Is your product clear for users, given their mental model and context?

2. Can users quickly understand what your product does?

3. Have you removed every roadblock for them to realize the utility of your product?

How long you wait to fix these issues will impact your ability to build a direct relationship with users and get feedback about what matters.

Yes I think the problem with “utility before beauty” is it can become an excuse to never get to the beauty part at all.

Yep, we’ve all read books on MVPs. I think it’s important to ship an MVQP (Minimum Viable Quality Product):

While we believe in shipping quickly and getting things out in Alphas or Previews so we can learn and build with users, we wouldn't want to ship something so lacking that we set users up to fail and can’t even get usable feedback.

Just to play devil’s advocate, there are many successful B2B products that I wouldn’t necessarily label high quality. Why does Stripe care so much?

Unfortunately, enterprise software hasn't had the best reputation for quality.

But I think the tides are changing. Companies are realizing that enterprises are made up of people who want to interact with usable, powerful products that spark joy.

For example, we created a checkout experience that helps businesses increase revenue by 11.9% on average. The details we've obsessed over for 14 years allow that to happen.

Most enterprise companies assume people can be trained to use their product, but that extra effort keeps customers from achieving their goals faster. We aspire to make our products straightforward and intuitive, so you don't necessarily need to be trained to benefit from the products and features. You might even enjoy using it.

Stripe’s rituals to level up product quality

It must be great to be head of design for a company where the founders (Patrick and John) care so much about craft and quality.

Yes! Patrick and John instill this in our culture.

Patrick has said he would be far less happy if Stripe was successful but not well-crafted and beautiful. He thinks beauty plays a role simply because it brings joy and makes the world feel better. I agree, but we also have proof that beauty makes business sense. As I said earlier, those details make our products easier to engage with and have also helped to build our brand.

How do product teams at Stripe build with users and businesses?

Our users are very forward with what they need because they’re trying to run their business with Stripe.

But often, we can show users things they didn't think possible — such as the ability to provide the right payment methods through Checkout dynamically.

We spend a lot of time talking to our users and observing how they get things done. We want to understand their needs better than they do so that we can exceed their expectations. Look:

So we practice continually showing things to users, getting feedback, and iterating, sometimes in less than 24-hour cycles. This has been key to our success.

For example, we do Product Preview programs where we launch the product to a subset of users. These users are invested in helping make the product better because it makes a big difference for them.

Yes, most of our products have been created in concert with our users. Even our Connect product came about in the early days while working with Lyft. They needed more from our payments platform to pay drivers in and out.

That helped form Connect over time, and now Stripe Connect is the world’s largest provider of payments and money movement for platforms, used by fast-growing platforms like Jobber and StyleSeat and scaled leaders like Shopify. Building with our users is definitely for the best in product design.

Another great Stripe practice is friction logs to feel the user’s pain yourself. Can you explain how friction logs work and how you encourage employees to do them?

They’re not a substitute for talking to users but an addition. Our users won't always tell us about every little thing they see, or maybe subconsciously, it doesn't feel right, but they don't know why. We want to experience it ourselves and understand it.

We also want to look at things not just in isolation. Let's say you're a PM, designer, and engineer working on a product, thinking about it all day. Maybe it's a couple of pages in an interface. You're ready to ship. Have you thought about how the person will find it? Is there an email being sent? What's the language in the email, and does it map to the language on the website? Once you click, where do you end up? What happens if you have an issue and need to contact support? How is that all connected?

They jot down what they see, take screenshots, identify where language isn't clear and things aren't using our style guide, and quickly log bugs when they find them.

What's powerful is thinking across time and place, like a user would. We score these user journeys, track them, and log them regularly to see if we're improving.

Do you do this across the entire customer journey that combines multiple products?

Yes, anyone in the company can do friction logs.

They’re encouraged to do logs for other team’s products and post them in a channel where anybody can read them.

They're a good way to see how someone might experience the product, especially parts you're unfamiliar with.

We started by identifying our top 15 primary user flows or jobs to be done. What are the top things our customers are trying to accomplish, and what do those journeys look like? These journeys include:

1. Getting started with Stripe and identifying the right product for their needs

2. Setting up our billing product to charge subscriptions

3. Creating a Payment link without code to accept online payments

Once a quarter, a team of engineers, designers, and PMs will review that experience, friction log it, and score it. We have a scoreboard shared with the company and a company goal to ensure these journeys stay green according to our quality rubric.

What is your metric to measure quality?

Unsurprisingly, we have a checklist to help people assess the quality of their products, and its categories include utility, usability, craft, and beauty. But that’s just a guide to help people remember things that matter, like copy, motion, load time, transitions, etc. It’s neither comprehensive nor sufficient as a means for measurement. 

Everybody talks about it like a holy grail, but the truth is there isn’t just one way to measure quality. It all depends on the user and their context, what they are trying to do, and what the intention of the product is. Quality for one product might mean something very different than for another.

We've been holding a product quality QBR (quarterly business review) once a quarter. We have several metrics we track related to quality that we review for every major product area, including:

1. Essential journeys: This is an employee's view of how good or bad the experience feels. It's qualitative, using a five-point scale (red, orange, yellow, lime green, green). We intentionally kept it simple to avoid false precision.

2. Customer sentiment: We use CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) surveys and PSAT (Product Satisfaction) surveys for more quantitative user opinions and abundant qualitative user research.

3. Support tickets and bugs: We track these to identify recurring issues and inadvertent errors in production.

4. Product efficacy: We look at metrics that help us understand whether the product achieves its goal and solves the user's problem.

Together, this suite of metrics gives us a sense of whether the product is quality.

Keeping quality a priority as companies scale

As companies get larger, I’ve found that teams start thinking about the quality of internal artifacts instead of customer-facing products. They start thinking, "I need to present to the CEO, so this deck must be high quality." How do you balance this at Stripe?

It’s not good when wanting to impress an exec internally puts more pressure on teams than the fear of not shipping something great to a customer. We don't want to be in that business.

The primary goal of our product reviews is to understand what the user experience will be and what users will think.

We do this for a few reasons:

1. Users don’t have the context. You're biasing people in the meeting about product quality because you've told them all this stuff that users wouldn't know.

2. Let’s just use the product. We like reviews where we just jump into the prototype or product, see it, and feel it from the user’s perspective. That helps make the feedback more useful.

3. Avoid wasting time on internal artifacts. Sometimes, we need to tell a story, but we constantly look for ways to get closer to what the user would feel.

If I care about craft and quality, how do I find a work environment where these things are valued so I can feel good about coming to work every day?

Someone once advised me that you can't force it upon the organization. It'll probably be a hard battle to fight if it's not in the company's DNA. I can't tell you whether I believe that to be true – I might be a glutton for punishment.

But I think leading by example is the best way to focus on craft and quality. Show your company what great looks like and the cost of poor decisions.

Unfortunately, most companies' gravitational pull is not to pursue excellence.

We could talk about quality all day, but nothing will matter unless we can see and feel it. I find the best way to convince others is just by using the product together — walking the store and going to talk to users. That can be exceptionally enlightening to help people understand where you are regarding quality and where you want to be.

I want to reflect on my career and be proud of what I delivered. Software products come and go, and it’s rare to ship something that makes a lasting impact.

I agree. We put so much time and effort into our jobs.

We should be doing things we're proud of. Time's too short to waste putting things out into the world you're not excited about.

Thank you Katie! If you love this conversation, please follow Katie on X and LinkedIn.

Today, I want share 6 steps that I take to turn a mediocre MVP into a quality product.

It’s easy to say “we care about quality,” but it’s another thing to make the daily decisions and sacrifices needed to deliver something that you’re truly proud of.

Let’s discuss the steps below with some real examples from the trenches:

1. Only the paranoid survive

2. Don’t go chasing waterfalls

3. Test your own shit

4. Ship to concentric circles

5. Marketing is the product

6. Launch is just the beginning

This post is brought to you by…Satish

Satish (ex-Meta product leader) and I agree: “The best way to scale yourself as a product leader is to empower everyone on your team to be mini-PMs.” In the free lesson below, Satish shares his playbook on how to scale yourself and your team better. He’s a dear friend and a top rated PM instructor — check out the lesson now:

Get the Playbook Now

1. Only the paranoid survive

This first step is more of a mindset. To set the bar on quality, you have to:

Being paranoid isn’t fun, but it helps me:

• Put myself in my users’ shoes

• Consider edge cases

• Sweat every detail

For example, when I worked on Roblox’s AI Assistant, we went out of our way to break it with adversarial prompts. We uncovered many bad answers and hallucinations that helped us improve the Assistant’s responses before launch.

2. Don’t go chasing waterfalls

It's time to retire the classic "waterfall" product development process. In fact:

The best designers want to contribute as early as possible. So instead of a full PRD, I now share a one-pager with the problem, goal, and high-level requirements to kick-off the PM-design collaboration as soon as possible.

When iterating on designs, I like to:

1. Validate with real users early and often. Don’t wait for a design crit or UXR study to get feedback. Share in-progress designs in your user community weekly.

2. Think beyond the happy path. Details like product copy, empty states, and edge cases all matter. Obsess about getting them right with your designer.

3. When in doubt, narrow the scope. It's better to solve a single user problem exceptionally well than to tackle many problems poorly.

For example, I’ve been working on a product with complex workflows. My designer and I were nevertheless able to simplify the user experience by iterating with real customers and relentlessly focusing on details like product copy. Always take on the burden of making things obvious instead of putting it on the user.

3. Test your own shit

I recently came across a Reddit thread asking: “PMs, do you test your features yourselves?” The answers are why people hate on product managers:

You can’t outsource testing to your engineers or QA team because nobody has as much context on the product as you do. So please:

1. Make time to test. Stop polishing internal artifacts and instead focus on improving the product that customers actually use.

2. Lead by example. I work with a technical director who’s always the first to thoroughly test new products. Nobody is too senior to dogfood.

3. Test like a new user. Go through your flows as if you're using the product for the first time. Don’t assume that users will just understand how it works.

For example, at Stripe, everyone is encouraged to write friction logs detailing all the points of friction they experience when using a product. Here’s an example of a friction log (along with my template for you to make your own):

Read more

Today, I want to share some real talk about the state of product management.

Is it just me, or is everyone online throwing shade at PMs these days?

Let’s look at the evidence:

1. “Founder mode” celebrates founders not delegating product responsibilities.

2. Startups are posting, “We don’t hire PMs!” to attract engineers.

3. Big tech PMs have become a meme (and not the good kind):

So how did we get here, and more importantly, how can we earn back respect for the PM profession? I’ll share ten reflections below.

1. Stop doing product management theater

I cringe whenever I see a LinkedIn post about "10 frameworks to level up your strategy." PM theater is about obsessing over crafting the perfect internal artifact:

1. Vision

2. Strategy

3. Roadmap

4. OKR

5. PRD

Don’t get me wrong, these artifacts have their place. But let’s not forget what the job is about — understanding what users want, identifying the right product to build, and executing to grow the business.

To put it bluntly — if you don’t have this feedback loop going with real customers, you shouldn’t be working on your vision, strategy, or any other fancy artifact.

2. Recognize that hypergrowth is mostly bullshit

Hypergrowth was a term coined during the ZIRP years to prioritize growth over profitability and hire people well before you need them to scale your company.

We’ve all seen this doom loop before:

1. Raise a big round and hire execs to level up.

2. Execs want to grow headcount (they’re from FAANG, after all).

3. Product and culture suffers.

4. Growth slows, and mass layoffs follow.

Instead of hypergrowth, promote your best people and empower them to do their best work by removing the coordination and bureaucracy tax of big orgs.

3. Choose your “founder mode” work carefully

Speaking of empowering people, let’s talk about founder mode. Here’s how Paul Graham breaks it down:

“Founder mode” is when CEOs and founders stay hands-on instead of delegating work to PMs and managers. But here’s the thing about founder mode:

We've all worked with leaders who drop a feedback bomb before disappearing again. This isn't good for anyone.

Instead, the right way to practice founder mode is to:

1. Pick the highest leverage work to focus on.

2. Seek diverse perspectives and be willing to change your mind.

3. Recognize where you have gaps and when to delegate.

This applies to both CEOs and individual PMs. Nobody likes working with leaders who micromanage everything.

4. Avoid toxic leaders who only manage up

I've had the privilege of working for some great product leaders like Sharmeen.

But I’ve also worked with bad leaders who climbed the ladder quickly despite being universally disliked by their team. These leaders usually:

1. Spent all their time with the C-suite.

2. Took credit for their team’s work.

3. Blamed failures on their reports instead of taking ownership.

In other words:

Sadly, failing upwards is all too common for this profile. These leaders often move from one executive job to another because employers don't check references with their reports.

To avoid hiring or reporting to leaders like this, do your due diligence with their team. I think these leaders hurt the PM profession more than anyone else.

5. Find an environment that matches your values

Here's something I wish I'd known earlier in my career:

Find a company, manager, and role that lets you operate in your zone of genius — what you're good at and energizes you.

I learned this the hard way in a past PM role where I ran many growth experiments. Although I was good at it, I hated testing MVPs instead of crafting quality products. I was stuck in my zone of excellence, which is a dangerous place to be in.

So, if you can afford it:

You can only pretend to like a job for so long before it starts draining your soul.

6. Spend less time on planning and OKRs

In tech, it's hard to predict what'll happen in a year, let alone three years. Yet, many big tech PMs spend months every year aligning on annual roadmaps and OKRs.

The reality is that these plans often become outdated just a quarter later because you learned something new about the customer and the market. When this happens, too many PMs still rigidly stick to their plans and goals.

I think a better planning process is:

1. Limited to at most 10% of your time

2. Focused on a few key priorities

3. Flexible enough to change based on common sense.

A better planning process is also not obsessed about OKRs.

Obsessing about OKRs instead of customers (or common sense) leads to the wrong incentives and bureaucracy at too many companies that are now past their prime. Be willing to adjust your plans and OKRs as market conditions change or as feedback comes in.

7. Design your incentives carefully

As companies scale, individual incentives often shift from growing the business to securing personal promotions.

Here are a few examples of bad incentives for PMs:

1. If you punish PMs for a new product failure, they'll stop making 0-1 bets.

2. If you measure PM impact through quarterly OKRs, they'll optimize for short-term hacks vs. long-term quality.

3. If you reward PMs for great product reviews and beautiful slide decks, they'll focus on these internal artifacts instead of the product that customers actually use.

4. If you promote PMs based on their peer feedback only, they'll try to make all their stakeholders happy instead of having a sense of urgency.

I could go on for ages. The point is to design your incentives carefully and audit them regularly. Reward PMs who create real value (again, use common sense!) instead of those who play optics well.

8. Communicate across layers

In big tech, nothing kills productivity more than the game of telephone that happens as information travels up and down the org chart.

That’s why I love this quote from Jensen Huang:

Leaders are starting to recognize that this game of telephone is toxic. Here’s an excerpt from Andy Jassy’s recent email to Amazon employees:

The best way to avoid this bureaucracy is as follows:

1. The project’s DRI (directly responsible individual) should be in the room during key discussions, regardless of their level.

2. Executives should seek updates directly from the DRI instead of getting a filtered view through their VPs and directors.

3. The founder or CEO should encourage any employee to contact them and eliminate behavior where multiple layers of people are polishing an email or deck.

9. Build a dual career track for PMs

Despite talk about elevating individual contributors, many PMs and designers still want to be managers because those roles come with fancier titles, higher pay, and more prestige.

I once had a great designer tell me:

Nobody should be forced to make this trade-off. Thankfully, leaders are finally realizing that it's bad for the company if everyone wants to manage large teams.

Yet, I think more needs to be done for a dual PM career track to be real:

1. The IC track must have the same pay, titles, and prestige as the manager track.

2. The term "leader" should be separated from "manager" - ICs can be great leaders!

3. Crafting the product shouldn’t be seen as a junior PM skill vs. managing people or building orgs. After all, all the best founders operated as “IC” PMs.

4. Senior ICs should be in the room to participate in exec-level discussions and promo committee reviews along with managers.

Again, incentives are everything. Start rewarding people who build great products instead of only people who build orgs.

10. Learn how to build

Many big tech PMs have become what Nikita Bier calls "a glorified internal alignment secretary." We’ve become far too focused on internal artifacts and processes that make internal stakeholders happy.

Instead, we need to obsess about crafting the actual product that customers use. Here’s a great quote from my interview with Claire Vo:

Wrap up

To wrap up, here’s how I think we can rebuild respect for the PM profession:

1. Stop doing product management theater

2. Recognize that hypergrowth is mostly bullshit

3. Choose your “founder mode” work carefully

4. Avoid toxic leaders who only manage up

5. Find an environment that matches your values

6. Spend less time on planning and OKRs

7. Design your incentives carefully

8. Communicate across layers

9. Build a dual career track for PMs

10. Learn how to build

If you enjoyed this post (or rant), check out my related talk on bringing the craft back to product management.

Today, I want to share a simple exercise to help you focus on what matters.

As someone with a full-time job, a creator business, and two kids — I have to be really disciplined about how I spend my time.

This exercise takes just 30 minutes and leaves me more in control of my life.

Credit to Justin Welsh for inspiring it. I recently interviewed Justin about how he built his $8M solopreneur business (subscribe to my YouTube to get it in a few weeks).

Rank your tasks by their impact-to-time ratio

1. Write down your goal

You can’t prioritize your tasks without a clear goal. For example, I want to grow revenue for my creator business this year.

2. List all your tasks during a typical day

Reflect on your past week and list every task you did to make progress on your goal.

For example, as a creator, I did everything from writing this newsletter to researching podcast guests to posting on social media.

3. Calculate your impact-to-time ratio for each task

Go through each task and write down the:

1. Impact towards your goal (1 = low impact, 10 = high impact)

2. Hours you spent on it over the past week

Next, divide the impact by hours to get each task’s impact-to-time ratio. Here’s what my list looks like after sorting by this ratio from highest to lowest:

I can already draw a few conclusions from this table:

1. Newsletter tasks have the highest ROI.

2. Podcast tasks take more time but have limited revenue upside in the short term.

3. Social tasks have questionable value overall (if I’m honest, “getting ideas from social” often devolves to just doom-scrolling and wasting time).

You’ll notice that the action column is empty — let’s talk about how to fill that in next.

For each task, decide if you want to eliminate, simplify, automate, delegate, or own — in that order

Now comes the fun part — look through your list again and assign one of the following actions to each task:

1. ❌ Eliminate

2. ⏱️ Simplify (do less)

3. 🤖 Automate with AI

4. 🤝 Delegate to others

5. 🎯 Own it

After going through this exercise:

Here’s what my list looks like after assigning an action to each task, along with what I actually did next to take back my time:

Read more

Today, I want to share 40 life lessons after 40 years around the sun.

I recently turned 40 and spent 10+ hours writing down what I’ve learned for my daughters (and you, my dear reader).

Instead of vague pleasantries, I focused on career, health, and relationship lessons you can take action on right now. Let’s dive in.

Career

To have a fulfilling career:

Follow your curiosity

1. Find the torture that you’re comfortable with. Success in any career requires pain and sacrifice. So try different paths to find what Jerry Seinfeld calls: “a painful thing that you can do for hours that would make others tap out in minutes.” For example, I love torturing myself to write at 6 AM.

2. Look for the intersection. Find work that satisfies what you want, what you’re good at, and what the market wants. If you're in a job that you're good at BUT drains your energy, please keep looking. It's arguably the most dangerous place to be. For example, I spent three years in management consulting instead of pursuing what I wanted.

   

3. Stop waiting for permission. Don’t think: "If only I could get into this great school/company/job, then I could do great work." You don’t need anyone’s permission to do great work! Instead, build something your target customers want and bypass the gatekeepers.

4. Maximize your luck surface area. Go where your target customers and people who share your dreams hang out. I moved to the Bay Area over 10+ years ago to work in tech. But these days, you can just as easily find your people online. Over the years, I’ve met many great product leaders and creators by consistently posting my thoughts (and memes) on X.

5. Don’t be the best, be the only. It’s easier to be in the top 10% for a particular set of skills than for a single skill. I can’t claim to be the best PM out there, but I’m probably one of the best PMs building for creators who are creators themselves. Find your unique skill stack that gives you energy and meets market demand.

Push yourself to do hard things

6. Set audacious goals. Never write off a goal because you think it’s not achievable. Instead, push yourself to tackle tough challenges and build confidence over time. My friend Nat Eliason pushed himself to run marathons, which gave him the confidence to learn coding and even publish a book.

7. Just ****ing start. The best way to learn if something will work is to try it. Don’t waste time making grand plans or thinking, “Someday, I’ll do this.” Instead, just ****ing start and get real feedback. Go through the understand, identify, and execute loop as quickly as possible.

8. Put in the reps. As a rule of thumb, I like to put in at least 100 reps before even thinking about quitting. If you’re struggling to stay motivated, hack your brain to track progress by how often you show up instead of by immediate results. I try to focus on uploading podcast episodes weekly instead of obsessing over views.

Learn from failures

9. Find the right environment to learn. I’ve been at companies where every failure felt like walking on eggshells and others where taking risks and owning up to mistakes was rewarded. Choosing where to work is one of the most important decisions for your career, so find a company that shares your values and lets you grow and learn from your mistakes.

10. Ask, “What did I fail at today?” You've become too comfortable if the answer is “nothing” for days. With my kids, I believe the sooner they get used to failure, the better off they’ll be. I’ve failed at jobs, relationships, and more — they were some of my lowest moments but also where I grew the most.

11. Pain + reflection = progress. Failure is only useful if you learn from it. Keep a written log of your setbacks and why you failed, no matter how much it stings. Everyone has at least one big weakness holding them back; your log will help you spot it. Many of my failures came from being too impatient (I am still working on this!).

More reflections on career

12. Personal finance matters. Nobody taught us this in school, but habits like living within your means, avoiding high-interest debt, and maxing out your 401k match will fast-track your financial independence. Wealth lets you pursue what you want instead of stressing about bills. A great example is Schwarzenegger - he built a real estate business first to be able to try acting without taking crappy roles.

13. Seek a calendar that you control. Some careers offer money and prestige but zero control over your time. I prefer work that rewards results over face time so that I have the option and time to explore diverse interests. Having an open calendar to choose your meetings is the ultimate flex.

14. Success isn’t just your career. Don't tie your self-worth to a fancy title or company name. Stacking credentials is a soulless pursuit. Every year, I rank what matters most in my life—this year's stack: health, family, career, friends, and hobbies. Life's dynamic - your interests and priorities will shift over time, and that’s perfectly okay!

Health

When I was young, I thought I had all the time in the world to get healthy. I wanted to "live my youth" by partying (or, let's be real, playing video games) late into the night. But looking back:

It’s great to “live your youth” occasionally, but good health unlocks everything else. To stay healthy, I focus on sleep, diet, and exercise — in that order.

Sleep

Without sleep, you’ll be too tired to eat well and exercise. To get good sleep:

15. Go to bed and wake up early. I go to bed at 10 pm and wake up at 6 am. Getting up early sucks at first, but having a golden hour for deep work without distractions quickly becomes empowering.

16. Follow the 3-2-1 rule. No food 3 hours before bed, no water 2 hours before, and no screens 1 hour before. The last one is crucial — having your phone in the bedroom will wreck your sleep (I'm still guilty of doing this too often).

17. Use simple sleep aids. I wear a sleep mask to trick my brain into shutting down, use mouth tape to prevent snoring (yes, it's a thing), and catch some sunlight in the morning to train my circadian rhythms.

Diet

18. Losing weight is 90% diet and 10% exercise. I didn’t figure this out until my 30s. I still can’t resist a good noodle soup, but I’ve managed to avoid the “dad bod” by watching what I eat.

19. Eat more protein. Aim for 0.7-1.0 grams of protein per pound of body weight. This is surprisingly hard for me to do (I don’t like feeling too full), but I try to get my protein from healthy sources like yogurt, salmon, chicken, steak, and protein powder.

20. Read the labels. It's shocking how often a "healthy" item like yogurt can have 20-30g of added sugar. Always read the labels to avoid buying something bad for you. Don’t buy junk food and leave it around your house—it’s very hard to eat healthy that way.

21. Treat sugary drinks and alcohol as poison. It's much easier to pack on pounds by drinking calories than eating them. Avoid this stuff as much as possible - I quit alcohol for a year before bringing it back for special occasions only.

Exercise

22. Work out more for your mind than your looks. Starting each morning with a solid workout is a win I can carry through the rest of my day.

23. Lift weights at least 3-4x a week. Your muscles naturally start to decline after 40, so build them early and keep working to maintain them.

24. Find hacks to save time when working out. With two kids, I no longer have time to drive to the gym. So, I bought a Tonal to strength train at home. A simple squat rack or some dumbbells will do as well.

More reflections on health

25. Use sunscreen every day, rain or shine. It's a cheap way to prevent wrinkles and skin problems. I wish I started this habit earlier.

26. Get annual check-ups and know your family history. My family has a history of breast cancer, so I got genetic testing for the BRCA gene. Early detection and regular checkups can be lifesavers.

27. Stress less, live more. Chronic stress wrecks your health. When stressed, I walk outside or do a quick meditation (NDSR) session to calm down.

Relationships

I believe that:

But thinking, "If I can just find my soulmate, then I'll be happy," is toxic. The irony is that relying on others for happiness isn’t the best way to build great relationships. Instead, chase your curiosity and surround yourself with people you respect. You'll naturally attract the right people that way.

Let’s talk about improving relationships with your spouse, family, and friends:

Spouse

28. Avoid rollercoaster relationships. High-drama relationships might feel exciting in the short term, but they wreak havoc on everything else long-term. I learned this the hard way in my 20s, so don’t make my mistake.

29. Get comfortable with being alone. Now that I have a family, I've realized that alone time is precious. Don't be needy by seeking constant attention from your spouse. We all need time to ourselves.

30. Don’t keep score. Relationships are never 50/50; trying to achieve this will only build resentment. Instead, go out of your way to make your spouse happy and communicate openly. The right person will reciprocate.

Family

31. Call your parents often. Watching my parents age has been humbling, and I now understand how much they sacrificed for me after becoming a parent myself. I regret not calling them much in my 20s and early 30s. Now, I chat with them almost daily, even if it's just for a few minutes.

32. Live close to your parents after having kids. Having your parents around to help with childcare is the ultimate parenting hack. As they age, being able to see them anytime on the weekend is also precious. I'm just a short flight from my parents, but I wish we'd planned to live in the same city.

33. Spend quality time with your children. When my kids drive me crazy, I try to remember I only get 18 summers with them before they go to college. Cherish your time together and give them your full attention. Raise them with your spouse, and remember it's never 50/50.

Friends

34. Keep in touch with a core group of friends. Having a tight-knit group of friends who know you is a great source of happiness. I stay connected with my high school and college buddies over DM. Recently, I took a trip with my high school friend, and seeing him again after all these years with our kids was amazing.

35. Build a network of weak ties. While deep friendships are crucial, don't underestimate the power of a broad network. I've met many internet friends in real life who share my interests. Being able to share learnings and help each other has been incredible.

36. Be genuinely curious about others. Everyone has a fascinating story to tell and something to teach you. Being truly interested in others is the best way to build relationships and make new friends as an adult (other than going to kids’ birthday parties!).

More reflections on relationships

37. Invest in shared experiences. Spend money on epic trips with your family and friends instead of buying stuff. Memories outlast possessions.

38. Let go of grudges and regrets. Holding onto anger and past regrets will only haunt you. Write down the lessons from your past, but focus on your future.

39. Avoid the comparison trap. Whenever I feel jealous of someone, I think: "Would I swap my entire life with them, including my family and my kids?" If not, don't envy their fancy LinkedIn title or social media highlight reel.

Remember, these aren't hard and fast rules, but lessons I've learned through experience. Which brings me to the final lesson:

40. Write down your life lessons and principles.

Writing down your values makes making decisions much easier. Let me know in the comments if these lessons resonated with you and if you have any lessons to share!

Bonus: If you’re wondering about life after 40, I got 600+ replies to my question below:

Today, I want to share my Figma Config talk on bringing the craft back to PM.

I gave this talk to 800+ PMs and designers at the conference, and many people came up to me afterward to tell me how much they loved it.

You can watch the full 17-minute talk now on YouTube. If it resonates with you, please consider liking or sharing it.

Below are the full transcript, slides (in Figma Slides), and of course, memes.

Introduction

Good morning everyone. You know, something happened to the PM career.

If you’re like me, you became a PM to craft products that customers love. But somewhere along the way, things changed for many of us. 

Today, pushing metrics, growing headcount, and climbing the corporate ladder have overshadowed the joy of building something meaningful.

It’s time to bring the craft back to product management. To me, PM craft means focusing on:

1. Delighting customers

2. Caring about the details

3. And ultimately, giving a damn about the product that you’re bringing to the world.

I’ve worked in tech for over a decade and have interviewed many top product leaders. 

Today, I want to share ten tactics to help you craft products you can be proud of.

1. Build with the community

On a product team, PMs, designers, and engineers talk to each other throughout the day. Building with the community means doing the same thing with your customers.

Here’s how I do it:

1. Set up a community. It can be a Discord, Slack, or even just a DM thread.

2. Build in public. Ask customers about their problems and share updates often. 

3. Make time to hang out. Don’t just talk about your product. Build a casual environment where customers feel comfortable sharing the truth with you.

The tighter your feedback loop is with your community, the faster your product will improve.

At Roblox, I built a community with 100s of top creators. 

I spend as much time talking to them as I do with internal stakeholders, as does everyone else on my team. The feedback has been incredible — creators feel heard, spread the word to other creators, and tell Roblox leaders about my product every chance that they get.

So, build with the community to build better products.

Focus on your customer instead of on internal shenanigans.

Now, just talking to customers isn’t enough. To build empathy, you must also:

2. Feel the customer’s pain 

Here’s how I do it:

Read more

Today, I want to share 15 life and work quotes from Jensen Huang (NVIDIA’s CEO).

Jensen cleaned toilets and washed dishes before leading NVIDIA to become the most valuable company in the world.

I watched 10+ hours of Jensen interviews to get inside the mind of the world’s most impressive Asian dad. Below are my 15 favorite Jensen quotes on:

1. Leadership

2. Strategy

3. Personal growth

I’ve also included my personal thoughts a few quotes. Let’s dive in.

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1. “My goal is to create the conditions where amazing people come to do their life’s work.”

“I think there are three conditions for people to do their life’s work:

1. Empower them with information. I don’t make decisions where only one person needs to hear them. I prefer environments where a diverse team of experts and people can work on a problem together.

2. Reason through problems publicly. It’s incredibly empowering to take an abstract idea and reason it down to precisely what we should or should not do.

3. Full stack company. I try to encourage experts and contributors at every single layer of the company to be engaged with a problem at the same time.”

I love how much Jensen emphasizes transparency and public discourse to encourage everyone at the company to contribute to NVIDIA’s mission.

2. “I have 60 direct reports, and I don’t do 1 on 1s.”

“I don't do one-on-ones. Almost everything that I say, I say to everybody at the same time. I don't believe there's any information that only 1-2 people should hear about.

I love that everybody's working off of the same song sheet. I love that we're able to all contribute to solving a problem. Everybody hears the reasoning behind the problem and the solution.”

I think Jensen’s approach works for senior leaders but for most employees, 1:1s remain a critical forum to discuss career growth and challenges. It’s the employee that needs the 1:1, not the manager.

3. “I give feedback right in front of everyone.”

“This is a big deal. First of all, feedback is learning. For what reason are you the only person who should learn this?

You created the conditions because of some mistake or silliness you brought upon yourself. We should all learn from that opportunity.

Learning from other people's mistakes is the best. Why learn from your embarrassment? It’s much better to learn from other people's embarrassment.”

This runs counter to the “praise publicly and criticize privately” advice. I think it’s important to learn from product failures publicly, but giving public individual feedback only works if you can do it in a constructive way.

4. “I spent alot of time reasoning with decisions.”

“I spend a lot of time reasoning through my decisions, which empowers employees because they learn how leaders think through problems.

In every meeting, I explain how I think through the situation: Let me reason through this, explain why I did that, and how we compare and contrast ideas.

That process of management, I think, is empowering.”

I love this principle, and it’s also why I love written communication. As Jeff Bezos says, “There is no way to write a six-page, narratively structured memo without clear thinking.” Memos can also be easily shared with the entire company.

5. “We don't do just vice president meetings or director or board meetings.”

“At the meetings I have, there are new college grads there. There are people from every different organization. We are just all sitting in there.

You want the most informed, best-skilled person to be there. They either made the mess, or they confronted the situation.”

At many companies, middle management controls access to information. But the best VPs and directors I’ve worked with are candid and transparent. Your reports need to know the broader picture to do their job well.

6. “I very seldom fire people — I’d rather torture them to greatness.”

“Look, I used to clean bathrooms, and now I'm the CEO of a company. You just have to be allowed to learn. I don’t like giving up on people.

Greatness comes all of a sudden one day. Do you know what I'm saying? That feeling that you didn't get it yesterday, and suddenly, something clicked one day? Could you imagine giving up on that moment just before you got it?

So I’ll just keep torturing you instead.”

This sounds great, but sometimes people just aren’t a great fit for a specific role. I think this advice resonates more for people who are already performing at a high level and want to excel further.

7. “I love zero-billion dollar markets.”

“Our purpose should be to do something that has never been done.

Those markets are zero billion dollars in size.

We never talk about market share. The whole concept of market share says a bunch of other people are doing the same thing. Why would I squander the lives of these incredibly talented people to do something that has already been done?

Because we selected amazing markets and hard-to-do things, amazing people joined us… that’s how you build something special.”

8. “Deciding what to give up on is at the core of success.”

"The phone market is huge; we could have chosen to fight for share. Instead, we made a hard decision and sacrificed the market...

Nvidia's mission is to build computers to solve problems that ordinary computers cannot. We should dedicate ourselves to realizing that vision.

Our strategic retreat paid off. By leaving the phone market, we opened our minds to invent a new one. Retreating from a giant phone market to create a $0 billion market was risky, but it paid off.

Retreat does not come quickly to the brightest people, yet strategic retreat, sacrifice, and deciding what to give up are at the core of success."

9. “Strategy isn’t words; strategy is action.”

“If the company has a set of strategies, but the people's actions, their top five things are not that, then they're not executing the plan.

So strategy isn’t what I say; it’s what my employees do. That’s why it’s so crucial for me to understand what everyone’s doing. I do that by getting a feel for everybody's top five things. You see, we don't do status reports. Instead:

It’s just whatever happens to be your top 5 things — what you observed, did, or learned. I probably read a hundred or so of these emails every morning.

We also don't have a periodic planning system. The world is a living, breathing thing, so we plan continuously. So there’s no long-term plan — it's just what we do.”

At many companies, each management layer wastes so much time packaging up information for the CEO (e.g., long status updates and slides). I love that Jensen is willing to read an update from any employee. I wonder how many lower-level employees send him these updates, though.

10. “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.”

“There’s a belief that you should choose your career based on your passion. Usually, people connect passion with happiness. I think something is missing.

If you want to build something great, it's not easy. And when you're doing something difficult, you're not always enjoying it. I don't love every day of my job, but I love the company every single second.

And so I think that people misunderstand that the best jobs are the ones that always bring you happiness. I don't think that's right. You have to suffer, struggle, and endeavor. You must do those hard things and work through them to appreciate what you accomplish.”

Pursuing your passion should be rephrased as choosing the suffering that you love. Suffering is unavoidable if you want to achieve something great.

11. “People with very high expectations have very low resilience”

Unfortunately, resilience matters in success.

To me, no task is beneath me. Because remember I used to wash dishes, and I used to clean toilets. I cleaned a lot of toilets. I've cleaned more toilets than all of you combined and some of them... I just can't unsee. I don't know what to tell you. That's life,

This is absolutely true. I’ve seen plenty of straight-A Ivy-league students struggle when they enter the real world. The most successful people are the most comfortable with failure. I’m trying to teach my kids about failure early.

12. “Have the humility to confront failure and get help.”

“I contacted the CEO of Sega and explained that our invention was the wrong approach and that Sega should find another partner.

We had to stop. But I needed Sega to pay us in whole or NVIDIA would be out of business. I was embarrassed to ask.

The CEO of Sega, to his credit and my amazement, agreed.

His understanding and generosity gave us six months to live. With that, we built Riva 128. Just as we ran out of money, Riva 128 shocked the young 3D Market, put us on the map, and saved the company.

Confronting our mistake and, with humility, asking for help saved NVIDIA. These traits are the hardest for the brightest and most successful.”

It takes true humility to admit that you need help and ask for it. We should all ask for help more often and proactively help the people around us who need it.”

13. “Either you’re running for food, or you are food.”

"Run, don't walk. Either you're running for food, or you are running from being food.”

"You should choose something that's somehow you're destined to do. Either a set of qualities about your personality or expertise or the people you're surrounded by, your scale, your perspective, whatever you're somehow destined to do."

"You better love working on that thing so much because the pain and suffering is too great... People who can suffer are ultimately the ones that are the most successful."

As Andy Johns (Intel CEO) says: “Only the paranoid survive!”

14. “When I’m not working, I’m thinking about working.”

“I think my work-life balance is excellent. I work from when I wake up to when I go to bed, seven days a week. When I'm not working, I think about working.

So I sit through movies, but I don't remember because I'm thinking about work. I’m thinking about what the company can be. Are there things that we could do even better?

Sometimes, it's just trying to solve a problem, but sometimes, you're imagining the future. "Boy, if we did this and that" — it's working, you're fantasizing, you're dreaming.

I try to live a life of purpose and manage my time accordingly.”

I can see how if you’re doing your life’s work, you can’t help but think about it all the time.

15. “I have plenty of time to do my life’s work.”

“I noticed the lone gardener. Now, remember, the moss garden in the Silver Pavilion is gigantic and it's just exquisitely maintained.

I noticed the lone gardener squatting, carefully picking at the moss with a bamboo tweezer and putting it in the bamboo basket. And you have to, it's a bamboo tweezer, you know, and it's just this one gardener.

And so I walked up to him and said, “What are you doing?” And in his English, he said, “I'm picking dead moss. I'm taking care of my garden.” And I said, “But your garden is so big. And he responded, "I have cared for my garden for 25 years.”

Well, that was one of the most profound learnings in my life. This gardener has dedicated himself to his craft and doing his life's work. And when you do that, you have plenty of time.

I begin each morning exactly the same way: by doing my highest priority work first. Before I even get to work, my day is already a success. I've already completed my most important work and can dedicate my day to helping others.”

Jensen’s story highlights the importance of finding your craft and making time to prioritize your long-term goals.

Wrap up

To wrap up, I think Jensen summed up his life and work principles well in a recent commencement speech at Caltech. In his words:

1. Believe in something unconventional and unexplored but let it be informed and let it be reasoned. Dedicate yourself to making it happen.

2. See setbacks as new opportunities. Your pain and suffering are your ultimate superpowers. Of all the things that I value, intelligence is not at the top of that list. My ability to endure pain and suffering, to work on something for a very, very long period of time, to handle setbacks, and to see the opportunity just around the corner I consider to be my superpowers, and I hope they're yours.

3. Find a craft. It's not important to decide on day one, and it's not even important to decide any time soon, but I hope you do find a craft that you want to dedicate your lifetime to perfecting and be your life's work.

4. Prioritize your life. There are so many things going on and so many things to do, but prioritize your life, and you will have plenty of time to do the important things.

I hope that you use these principles to find and achieve your own life’s work.