Behind the Craft by Peter Yang

Behind the Craft by Peter Yang

Podcast

The Product Skills That Matter in the Post-ZIRP and AI Era

PM leaders from Airbnb, Duolingo, and Toast discuss hard truths about how the PM role is changing

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Peter Yang
Mar 31, 2024
∙ Paid
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Dear subscribers,

Today, I want to share a new episode about how the PM role is changing with Sanchan Saxena (Airbnb), Nickey Skarstad (Duolingo), and John Cutler (Toast).

For my paid subs, I also want to share a list of 10 product skills for the post-ZIRP and AI era that’ll help you stand out.


How the PM role is changing in 2024 | PM Panel

Listen now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.

This episode features a panel that I hosted a few months ago with Sanchan Saxena (Airbnb), Nickey Skarstad (Duolingo), and John Cutler (Toast). We talked about:

  • [00:00] Less internal shenanigans, more customer focus

  • [03:30] Why many companies are tired of product managers

  • [10:25] How Airbnb practices narrative-first product development

  • [13:09] Designing the right incentives for PMs

  • [17:03] How Duolingo gets PMs to focus on customer obsession

  • [22:01] How the PM and design relationship is evolving

  • [26:08] Getting hired in today's tough tech jobs market

  • [32:55] Favorite AI PM use cases from the panel

  • [42:25] How to be a great product leader in the post-ZIRP era

  • [45:27] Your number one career skill is how to smell out orgs


The product skills that’ll help you stand out in the post-ZIRP and AI era

Source: Reddit

As we heard from the panel, competition for PM jobs is more intense than ever due to:

  1. Companies cutting bloat and favoring builders over managers.

  2. AI automating busy work like project management.

To stand out, I think it’s important to work on 10 skills across 3 key areas:

  1. Navigate the product development loop

  2. Collapse the talent stack

  3. Become AI-native

Let’s dive in.

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