Inside How OpenAI Uses Codex to Do Product Work | Rohan Varma
A walkthrough of practical Codex workflows that Rohan uses to move faster as a PM, from image Gen prototypes to Slack-triggered automations
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Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share a new episode with Rohan Varma.
As a product manager on OpenAI Codex, Rohan has a firsthand look at how one of the most AI-native teams in the world works. He showed me how he uses Codex to automate work from Slack replies, prototype designs with image generation, replace stale PRDs with live sites, and more. Watch this episode if you’re tired of all the nonsense around “AI PM” and want to see how a real one actually operates.
Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Rohan and I talked about:
(00:00) Codex can do so much more than you think
(01:53) Use Codex to pull context from Slack, docs, Linear, and email
(03:28) How Codex flips planning from docs to demos
(13:14) Demo: Do the task once with Codex, then automate it
(14:30) Demo: Trigger Codex automations from Slack replies
(17:26) Demo: Use Image Gen to explore design variants fast
(19:58) Demo: Turn any Codex thread into a reusable skill
(29:55) Demo: Turn project context into a shareable Site
(33:33) Use one Codex thread to manage other Codex threads
(37:18) Aim to be 10x more ambitious than feels reasonable
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Top 10 takeaways I learned from this episode
Set up Codex as your work layer
Connect Codex to the tools where your work already happens. Rohan connects Codex to Slack, Notion, Linear, Gmail, Drive, and other tools. The magic starts when it can pull context from multiple connected tools and navigate to webpages that it has permission to access.
Use Codex to get up to speed on any project fast. Rohan said he can get added to a project last minute and quickly catch up by asking Codex to gather the Slack history, docs, Linear issues, email, and Drive context he is allowed to access.
Codex handles the manual work so PMs can spend more time with users. Since Codex can handle the manual PM work around information synthesis and follow-ups, Rohan has more time now to spend meeting enterprise customers and teams.